Study Says Men with Beards Aren't More Attractive. I Disagree.
Are Beards Attractive?
It started out as a joke. My husband decided that he should, nay needed, to grow a beard to celebrate the birth of our daughter. His sole purpose? To take the iconic ‘dad with a beard holding his newborn baby’ photo that was de rigeuer circa the 1960s and 1970s. But here he is, six year later, still sporting a full face of facial hair. And you know what? He hates it. The only reason he has kept the beard is for me and our young daughter. So when I read about the study that suggested that men with beards aren’t more attractive to women, I had to object.
First I should mention that I’m generally not a beard lover. But on my husband’s face, it just works. He looks mature, smart and sexy. Don’t get me wrong, he looks great without it too, but now – after six years – the beard is just something we’ve all gotten used to. He doesn’t enjoy having a beard himself. It’s itchy, takes more maintenance than he’d like, and did I mention that he thinks it’s itchy? But he likes to make his ladies happy (ladies being my daughter and I). He has shaved it off a couple of times and although I was a-okay with having a clean-faced hubby, my daughter was distraught. A bearded dad was all she knew.
But it turns out our admiration for my husband’s beard isn’t a given. According to a new study, “women … do not rate bearded faces as more attractive than clean-shaven faces,” the researchers stated in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
The researchers gauged the reactions to photographs of men with and without beards. The LA Times noted of the study, “both men and women said that with beards, the men looked older and more aggressive than they did with their beards shaved. The viewers also ascribed higher social status to the men when they were bearded than when they were baby-faced. Women said that the clean-shaven faces were more attractive than the whiskery ones.”
So although men without beards were deemed more attractive, men with beards are seen as stronger in a Darwinism sort of way. The LA Times noted that, “natural selection favored bearded faces because hairier men were more successful at conveying aggression and securing loftier social status.”
“These findings suggest that beards play a stronger role in signaling a man’s age, social status and potential threat than in augmenting physical attractiveness,” researchers wrote.
I for one, love my husbands beard but he’s attractive with or without it. What do you think of men with beards?
Image: I Made You A Beard
I usually think clean shaven is better looking, but I love my husband’s goatee.
I like very closely trimmed ones- kind of like that Gillette Fusion razor commercial with Adrien Brody, Gael García Bernal & André 3000.
Fuzzy ones gross me out and chafe my skin (especially tender skin in certain areas) !
That’s such as subjective thing… it really depends on the guy… and the beard.
After letting him know for many years that I thought he would look great with a beard, my husband finally grew one this year for me. And guess what? He’s liked it a lot more than he thought he would. He also loves the way our toddler runs her fingers through it and says, “I love your beard, daddy.” He thinks it’s funny that people at work often comment about his “poor wife” who has to put up with the beard… he always replies, “It was her idea!”
I think he’s going to shave it off as the weather warms up to avoid the hot itchies, but I hope next fall he’ll consider it again. Maybe it’ll become his traditional “winter coat.”
Beards, generally exude maturity and charisma.
I haven’t read the study, but I can’t help wondering if they controlled for contraceptive birth control use, which may influence the perceived attractiveness of stereotypically masculine males.
I have always loved facial hair. I miss it! When will men stop shaving their heads, chests, backs and every other part of their body? I feel it makes them look like 9 year old boys with a summer buzz cut! Give me a head with hair! Long beautiful hair! Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen! Give me a head with hair! Shoulder length or longer. Here, baby. There, baby. Everywhere, baby, baby! HAIR!!!!!
I love my husband’s beard!!! As a matter of fact, a few days ago the kids were distracting him while shaving and accidentally shaved into it and had to take the rest off. Luckily his hair grows fast and it will be back in a week or 2. But he is sad, our 4 year old daughter says he looks creepy, our 10 month old son took a day or 2 to accept it, and me? I prefer the beard (and when I say beard, I mean down to his throat, not just a little gotee) I love him just the same, but man his sexiness multiplies with it lol