Put down the razor: Science says women dig beards

It’s cold right now, so cold that you might be thinking of growing a beard just to protect your otherwise defenseless face from the cutting wind. Good idea! Especially because if science is to be believed (and it’s been trustworthy so far), women find beards both attractive and indicators of good fathering skills. Turns out the future just might belong to the bearded.

The facial hair freaks over at Beardsy came across a study on facial hair and attractiveness, published in the pages of Evolution and Human Behavior, a much more reputable source for evolution news than Makin’ Science Guesses with Tiki Barber. In the study, authors Barnaby Dixson and Robert Brooks showed women pictures of men with heavy stubble, light stubble, full beards, and ones who were clean-shaven. Women judged men with heavy stubble to be the most attractive of all, followed by heavy beards, light stubble and clean-shaven men. That’s not the end of the story though.

For you guys out there trying to fool women into thinking you’d be good dads, women rated the parenting skills, health and masculinity of men with full beards highest of all the pictures they studied. So sure, you might be a 35-year-old bass player who sleeps on a futon mattress on the floor and keeps your clothing on a board, also on the floor, which you call a floordrobe. But you’re convinced you’re ready to be a dad, and if you grow those whiskers, maybe some woman out there will think the same thing.

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