Why Do Women Like Beards? Study Sheds Light

The beard is a longtime symbol of manliness, and some women are drawn to the overt symbol of manhood that the beard represents.

Beards make men seem older and more mature, a trait that might be appealing to some women. Maturity.

Distinguished: beard = macho Heightened testosterone: beards (and other masculine secondary sexual characteristics, such as facial hair) are by-products of increased testosterone levels – as such, they indicate reproductive fitness. A good advertisement: beards (and other secondary sexual characteristics) are one way in which animals signal to members of the opposite sex how fit and healthy they are. Distinction: beards help men to be more easily distinguishable.

Good health and vitality are attractive, and a trim and neat beard is the manly indicator of same.

Fashion Statement: Nowadays, beards are popular among a lot of people. Some women think bearded men shall be more attractive, because this is trending and fashionable.

Why are beards very popular nowadays? Some people think that this trend makes people who have beards more attractive. Some women say that men who like fashion shall have beard because this is very fashionable.
On the contrary, some professions or jobs cannot allow people to have beards. For example, when you work in the kitchen at a restaurant, you need to pay attention to the hygienic. So, most restaurants refuse this.

Looking from another point of view, it's hard for women to say that they really like someone because of the beard. The truth is that lots of different kinds of people can be attractive.
In summary, I believe that this trend is changing and will take a long time for everyone to become familiar with.

Sense of Adventure: Beards can project a rugged, adventure-type image, which might be inviting to women who are drawn to this archetype.

Protection: Since ‘women’s protection’ – the attraction of a potential mate who can defend her from predators – is an innate component of women’s psychology, the sight of beards may literally be subconsciously arousing.

Confidence: Growing and maintaining a beard requires confidence, a trait many women find attractive.

Variation: Beards give variety to a man’s appearance, which can keep a relationship exciting and interesting.

Comfort: The pressure of a well-maintained beard can feel great, especially in the throes of horizontal dancing.

Here we're going to dive more into the details of this. Some specific details from the study are also included. Head forward to see more!

Facial Hair and Attractiveness

Facial hair does not have just one form: it can be of the beard, mustache, goatee and stubble variety to name a few. Each of these expressions of male hirsutism have the power to communicate different things, and their impact on women can be affected by different psychological and sociological factors. One study from 2013 was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences and looked at the cultural and personal factors that play a role in how women view men’s facial hair.

Other cultures might consider good facial hair to indicate maturity, wisdom, social status, and generally make men wearing it more attractive than those without – other cultures might consider facial hair to be unkempt or unprofessional, and might find unkempt men wearing facial hair less attractive. There will never be a study where personal preferences are not the final decider of things, and sometimes that group gets pretty big. In short, whatever society or other humans think, your personal preference will usually win.

The 2013 Study

The 2013 study is entitled ‘The Bearded Homosexual: Does Hairiness Reduce Male Attractiveness to Women?’ It examined how women rate men by facial hair. The study involved 351 women between 18 and 24, who were asked to rate the attractiveness of men in a series of photos who had varying levels of facial hair. The photographed men were digitally altered to have four levels of facial hair: none, light stubble, heavy stubble, and the full beard.

The findings? Yep, you guessed it: women’s assessment of the attractiveness of the stubble-wearing men varied according to its coarseness and sparseness. Heavy stubble was deemed the most attractive, full beards next, light stubble third, and clean-shaven last. And the women were most likely to rate heavy-stubble men as the most attractive for both short-term flings and for long-term relationships.

This means that the women’s satisfaction was ambiguous, depending on changes in their oestrogens and progesterones. It also emerged that women’s preferences were affected by their menstrual cycle. The women who were ovulating rated the best-looking men as having heavy stubble, while those who were not ovulating showed no preference for any level of facial hair. In other words, women’s ratings of men were influenced by their menstrual cycle hormones. Very interesting!

Implications

Men with thick stubble might be the most attractive, especially to ovulating women, according to results from the 2013 study. But that’s not all. When it comes to matters of the heart, a big deal is made about who’s ‘in’ or ‘out’ at any given moment, especially when it comes to reproduction and mate selection. So a guy who grows any kind of facial hair might see a mating benefit, because when it comes to relationships, attractive men are more likely to find a mate. Win!

It also hints at the fact that the dating game might be going against clean-shaven men. In the study, women still found the clean-shaven men attractive, but rated them as considerably less attractive than men with heavy stubble. Facial hair may convey masculinity and maturity, and women might therefore find men with facial hair more desirable.

However, the researchers did point out that the results don’t necessarily represent the entire human population. Women’s preferences can be variable depending on culture and context; some women just don’t like facial hair. Plus, the study’s participants were all women over 30, and gay men were not specifically asked about the role of facial hair in meeting sexual partners.

In spite of these limitations, the study is interesting in that it sheds some light onto the effects of male facial hair on female perceptions of sexual attractiveness. It suggests that men who wish to be perceived as more attractive to women might want to consider growing some facial hair – in particular, heavy stubble. But after all is said and done, personal preferences vary, and what one person might find attractive is simply not going to appeal to someone else.

On the other hand, some things should be taken in to consideration even though facial hair can be seen as attractive by some women, its still not attractive to some others. not only attraction, most of the facial hair needs a lot of grooming to say it nicely and that serves as a disadvantage to most of the men as more time and money will be involved in that. Men should consider these factors first before growing facial hair.

Conclusion

Perhaps people differed over what they found attractive? Perhaps some men looked better with facial hair than without? And perhaps, the thought occurred to me, perhaps for men willing to take on the burden of extra care and upkeep, this was another drawback. In other words, more than just bare skin was at stake here.

The women’s choices had to take into account the feelings and sensibilities of the men to whom they were responding. I’m only a laywoman, of course, but even in my crude judgments, I detected a moral dimension to women’s preferences. To be female-attractive was not just a matter of looking good, it also meant that you seemed like you might make good choices about your appearance, and perhaps you cared about how your appearance affected others.

The way that feminine preferences policed the male body is evident in the low numbers of men who are clean-shaven – only a minority want to have no hair on their faces. Obviously, this self-policing can go very wrong, and sometimes does. It can be used as an excuse to criticism an individual’s appearance. I know plenty of women who dislike the stubbly look.

The evidence that I found was in fact patchy. My findings missed much of the darker side of men’s and women’s relationship to their faces. And the research about women’s preferences for men is an undersatisfying realm to venture into if one is looking for tidy, definite knowledge. One reason for this is that studies in this area tend to be small. The tables in the published papers have small numbers of people in them. A study of 45 students, or handfuls smaller, is typical. Another problem with them is that they are necessarily limited to ‘samples’ of certain kinds of people – people in Australia or people in France, women or men.

A small sample of women cannot speak for all women. Does it matter that Nigerian women might feel differently about stubble than Malawian women? Trying to generalize from the meagre tables in the papers is a frustrating and perilous undertaking. This is but the beginning of the research on women’s preferences. It will take more than this small group of researchers to reach the presumably much bigger truths about women’s attitudes to men. But truths there are. And the early research is looking good for all my bearded brothers.

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