Here's what happens to men who grow beards, according to science

You might be like me. (Sorry, it's not always easy. Well, sometimes it is. But I digress.)

I mean, maybe you're a man who's been clean-shaven your whole life.

And maybe you decided at the start of the pandemic, when you were isolated from most of the world, anyway: Damn, let's see what happens if I stop shaving .

Now that the world is returning to the office (at least part-time), you're trying to figure out what science says about the impressions your new look inspires.

This happened to me, starting around March 2020. By April, I was past the itching stage; By Memorial Day it was full Grizzly Adams. At the end of the summer, I went to my hairdresser and said, Hey, how about you help me understand?

I like the way it turned out. I have to stay in control, because I've realized that the best look for me -- the one I feel most comfortable and confident with -- is when I'm trying to stop time, maintaining a perpetual state of approximately 10-14 days of growth.

Not, "the guy who showed up late last night and didn't get a chance to shave;" not "trying to emulate Tom Hanks in Castaway", but rather: "short beard, two weeks, might decide to shave, not sure."

Now, I don't know if this is pure coincidence or serendipity, but it turns out that 10 days of growth is exactly where science says most men should try to be in order to grow. send the most statistically positive messages to the people around them.

Let's start with a study from the University of Queensland in Australia, in which researchers tried to determine how different lengths of facial hair could affect the perception of men, in the eyes of heterosexual women.

Researchers collected women's reactions to photographs of men whose beards fell into four categories: clean-shaven, light stubble (5 days of growth), thick beard (10 days of growth), and thick beard ( about a month of growth). ).

The study really split the women's responses into categories based on the type of romantic relationships they were looking for.

But in short, men with light 3-day beards and thick beards fared better in the "just looking for a little fun" category, while men with thick beards and full beards were more attractive to women looking for a long-term relationship.< /p>

Men with clean-shaven faces were at the end of the queue in all cases.

Another study in Brazil found somewhat similar results for gay men, according to a report by New York Times; on the contrary, they were more attracted to men with more facial hair.

Now I'm happily married, so as long as my wife is cool with the beard, I guess I can consider that box checked. But I was also very interested in learning how people in social and business circles view bearded men, especially if there was scientific research to back it up.

Here is perhaps the most interesting study. Another group of Australian researchers (it must be a thing) asked 227 people to look at photographs of men with and without beards, and with facial expressions suggestive of happiness or anger.

In general, study participants identified angry bearded men the fastest, leading to the conclusion that bearded men exude an aura of seriousness...