And celebrities such as Jamie Doran and George Clooney have enhanced this popularity by sporting the bearded look.
New study reveals that bearded men are more attractive
The study, titled The Masculinity Paradox, asked 8,520 women to rate a variety of men based on how attractive they are. They were asked to rate men with a beard and without a beard and asked if they would consider them for either a short-term or a long-term relationship. The men were photographed clean-shaven, five days after shaving and 10 days after shaving. A final photograph was taken four weeks after shaving.
There was also some Photoshop manipulation to the faces so that they would either be more masculine or feminine. This was also done to determine what additional factors might catch a woman’s eye.
It found that all of the women involved preferred men with beards – yes, ALL of them, RSVP Live reports.
In light of the results, the Journal of Evolutionary Biology said: “Our findings suggest that beardedness may be attractive when judging long‐term relationships as a signal of intrasexual formidability and the potential to provide direct benefits to females.”
This basically means that men with beards are seen to be better long-term partners than people with no facial hair.
The researchers involved in the study said that beards may be popular because those with facial hair tend to look more manly.
This means, according to the study, that beards help show their “masculine social dominance.”
It also concluded that “extremely masculinized and, to an even greater extent, extremely feminized faces were least attractive when clean‐shaven and that stubble, and to some extent full beards, dampen the polarizing effects of extreme masculinity and femininity, possibly by obscuring the facial features that contribute to these overall shape cues.”
In other words, a beard softens the harsh features of a hyper-masculine man. It also adds some rugged charm to men who may be a little on the feminine side. Although that is true, it seems to only be to the benefit of men who are looking for a long-term relationship.
If you are a man looking to settle down with someone, you might want to put away the razor for a while and go for a more natural look. It just may make the difference in finding love or not.