I watched the Republican debate the other night, and I had many opinions about the candidates. But the one observation I neglected to make was that Ron Paul might be wearing “eyebrow toupees.” I didn’t even know such things existed until I read this article in the fashion and style section of yesterday’s New York Times.

Raising Eyebrows
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: October 12, 2011

IT wasn’t quite the slip-up (or slip-down, as it were) most people expect during a presidential campaign, but whatever happened to Ron Paul’s eyebrows at Tuesday night’s debate certainly caught some viewers’ attention.

For those of you not yet riveted by the Republican race, Mr. Paul, the dark-horse libertarian with equally dusky brows, was a victim of hot lights, faulty adhesive or merely a devilish optical illusion when his right eyebrow seemed to dip toward the stage at Dartmouth College.

Seen on television, Mr. Paul appeared to have a second, thinner brow under the one headed south, creating a delicate X over his right eye.

Jesse Benton, a campaign spokesman, insisted that Mr. Paul had been the victim of the elements, namely a heavy pollen season in New Hampshire, and called accusations that he’d been artificially enhancing “stupid” and “insulting.”

“Dr. Paul’s allergies acted up a touch,” Mr. Benton said in an explanation that might raise some, you know, questions.

Not that Mr. Paul would be blamed for trying to keep up with bushy brows like Rick Perry’s, whose upper-eye area is full, or Mitt Romney, whose orbital outliers are sometimes speckled with gray. Whatever the cause, eyebrow toupees appear to be a flourishing business. Experts in the field of eyebrow maintenance said that if the falling follicles were artificial, the buck should stop somewhere. Marina Valmy de Haydu, the executive vice president of the Christine Valmy beauty schools, said most glues used to apply false eyebrows were designed to withstand the rigors of stage lights and intense questions about the national debt.

“Those glues are almost indestructible,” Ms. De Haydu said. “So whoever put it on for him did not put it on correctly.”

Not that anyone did.

Eyebrow toupees? Hm.

Paul’s right one does seem to droop below the “real” one. And now that I think about it, doesn’t Whoopi Goldberg go without trying to cover her non-eyebrows?

I just never focus on other people’s eyebrows, let alone whether they’re real or not; they’re a body part that doesn’t enter into my consciousness much. But thanks to Ron Paul, I’m now officially obsessed with them.