Science Explains Why Women Are Attracted To Men With Beards
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Science Explains Why Women Are Attracted To Men With Beards - Grooming

Science Explains Why Women Are Attracted To Men With Beards

Trending News: Why You Should Grow A Beard If You Want To Attract Women

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Long Story Short

Some great scientific minds have finally answered the question of whether the hipster beard makes a man more attractive, and it turns out that it can.

Long Story

Beards can be hit and miss. On one hand they can make you look rugged, masculine and sexy, on the other they can make you look scruffy, unkempt or even homeless.

While the hipster beard is now a recognized accessory, does it actually increase your chances with women?

This was the question that Glasgow University’s Dr. Anthony Lee and Sean Talamas from the University of St Andrews set out to answer with a study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

A total of 700 volunteers of both sexes were shown pictures of 37 male faces that were either clean shaven or bearded and asked to rate them in terms of attractiveness.

The results were pretty clear -- in general the men with beards were more attractive than the clean shaven faces.

The science behind this appears to be that having a bushy beard increases a man’s facial width to height ratio and having a wider face is a sign of having more testosterone during puberty. On an evolutionary level, women love wide faces, so the beard is a winner.

However, a key factor is the size of your jaw. If you already have a big jaw then a big beard can tip you over the edge and be a negative, a beard is a successful tactic for people with a "weak" jaw (in a model sense, not a boxing sense).

“We found that bearded faces in which the jaw size was manipulated to appear less prominent were judged as most attractive, followed by bearded faces and clean-shaved faces with larger jaws. Clean shaven faces with smaller jaws were rated the least attractive,” the study authors told the Daily Mail.

So, a beard can be a good look for the thin faced, but if you’ve already got a whole Popeye thing going on, it might be best to keep a razor on hand.

However, it’s important to note that another recent study found that women actually go crazy for stubble, rather than a full-on beard, which is a great excuse for being lazy without hitting the itchy wall that derails so many wannabe beard growers.

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What about those of us who can't grow beards?

Drop This Fact

According to the Australian Science Channel, women with clean-shaven partners find clean-shaven men most attractive while women with bearded partners find bearded men the most attractive. Or that’s what they say anyway.