From the subways of Tokyo to the airports of Athens, join our fashion and lifestyle columnist "No Style" in her quest to get some. Say "fashion victim no more," now, say it again. Ahhh. Doesn't that feel better? The antithesis to the traditional style column, this Ms. puts the capital S back in style...

Ms. No Style

The high brow

There are many beauty dictates I purposely ignore, but I remained ignorant of this one until fairly recently. Leafing through a fashion magazine in a doctor's office one day, I came across an interview with Elizabeth Hurley proclaiming she has been discovered as a beauty only after her eyebrows had gotten a major makeover. The procedure had in fact changed her entire look, her entire life if she was to be believed.

I'd always thought that eyebrow plucking was for extremely hairy women, the unfortunates who without help sport large, bushy caterpillars above their eyes. I had never thought much about mine. They were au natural. Big and bold.

I took a quick survey of the women around me. The next morning during a staff meeting, I noticed that all the women with whom I worked had shapely, carefully crafted eyebrows. How had I missed out on something so basic all these years?

That evening I stood in front of the mirror, a newly purchased pair of tweezers awkwardly held in my hand and started plucking. And, I quickly stopped plucking. Ouch. You had to be kidding. I had three hairs gone, three hundred left to go. This slow torture was unbearable. One cold hard yank was the way to go I figured.

Saturday morning with a wedding to attend later that day, I asked Sue, the local esthetician, if she could have a go at my eyebrows when she finished waxing my legs. And gone they went. Seconds later she presented me with a mirror where I observed two very thin, timid, very high lines. So much hair had been removed that my eyebrows no longer looked together, but had become a broken little trail leading nowhere that was quickly beginning to swell. The new eyebrows were hideous. Back at home I got dressed as the top of my eyes puffed up and became fire-engine red. Desperate, I lay on the sofa, a frozen can of juice applied to each brow to reduce the swelling.

A close look in the mirror revealed that the eyebrow makeover had indeed completely transformed my look. I looked extremely surprised. The absurdly high ark set my face in a permanent look of bewilderment and extreme enthusiasm. Though I looked ridiculous, this new style did have its advantages. I looked very interested and supportive - less sarcastic -- no matter what was said to me. Colleagues with whom I didn't particularly get along began to warm up. My neighbor began to nod at me. I got into fewer arguments with the owner of the local deli. Style had escaped me once again but I had gained a semblance of popularity.

Contact Ms. No Style at 5a7@avivalasvegas.com. Make sure to put Ms. No Style in the subject line.

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