2022-06-21

I have a problem. I'm trying to grow a beard but I'm not sure if it suits me! This hairy attachment1 to men's faces has been very fashionable in the UK for a while. But now mine is finally sprouting2, I wonder if I have missed the boat.

Perhaps this is not such a bad thing. A new scientific study suggests that the more beards there are in a population, the less attractive they become. If this is true, it would give clean-shaven men a competitive advantage.

We've currently reached a peak in beard popularity in the UK and men might soon be reaching for their razors to give themselves a clean-cut look. But beards have gone in and out of fashion over hundreds of years. Think of the famous 19th century British naturalist3 Charles Darwin who had a big bushy beard. Or from the world of literature, Charles Dickens, who sported a very flamboyant4 beard.

But why have men through the ages grown such defined whiskers? Lucinda Hawksley, writer of Moustaches, Whiskers and Beards thinks that