I never thought I'd come around to this but I'm starting to like her. When I first saw her c. 2000 (around the time of her American debut), I, like most others, thought:
WTF is that?! The formation of her features is nearly flawless but the placement is so wrong as her nose practically merges with her mouth (I like this flaw in some women, but she takes it to an unfortunate extreme). In fact I think I have yet to see a Penelope movie in which I can discern some space between her nose and mouth, but.....
To compound matters she vacillates in a pendulum-like way. Sometimes she shocks the hell out of me by taking a great picture naturally looking the part of the sexy, smokey Spanish siren. Other times, she's more reminiscent of a drowning rat with a merged nosemouth.
Her eyes, brows, and natural almost-raven coloring are all lovely. Witness:
I love her deep, sensual eyes and smokiness.
To sum up she's usually sexy, but rarely beautiful, yet always eye-catching (whether in a good or bad way). She also has truly one of the most gorgeous bodies I've ever seen of anyone (celebrity, actress, model, athlete, real life) making full use of her petite 5'4" height and occasionally looking taller than that.
photo credit: this thread