Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers. (2024)

Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers. (1)

Instagram//Mike Rundle/X

Who had “people thirsting after Mark Zuckerberg” on their 2024 bingo card?

Over the weekend, the internet experienced some collective cognitive dissonance after seeing a photo of the Meta CEO decked out with a beard, a glowly tan and a silver chain necklace. (Zuck...is...hot?)

“Mark Zuckerberg went from Mr. Steal Your Data to Mr. Steal Your Girl,” more than one person joked.

“It’s crazy how much a beard can change a man’s life,” another person tweeted.

Even Gwyneth Paltrow was a bit taken aback by bearded Zuck. “He looks like my ex hubs [Chris Martin] in this pic,” the actress commented under a post from The Shade Room. (Others saw a resemblance to Jack Harlow or influencer Logan Paul.)

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Unfortunately for the thirsty among us, the viral pic was edited: The photo still is actually from an April 18 video Zuckerberg posted on Instagram announcing a new version of Meta AI.

A few hours after the tech billionaire posted, an X user named Mike Rundle posted a doctored pic from the announcement, showing Zuck with an added beard and a glowy Californian tan. (The silver chain was real, come to find out.)

“Me: Bearded Zuck you have to stop. Your smoked meat’s too tough. Your swag too different. Your open source LLM is too bad. they’ll kill you,” Rundle joked in his post, which has over 2.2 million views.

Me: Bearded Zuck you have to stop. Your smoked meat's too tough. Your swag too different. Your open source LLM is too bad. they'll kill you

Bearded Zuck: pic.twitter.com/pdKwMUmpKS

— Mike Rundle (@flyosity) April 18, 2024

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Nnenna B., a fashion influencer from New York City, told HuffPost she stared a little too long at Zuckerberg’s fake glow-up. Now, she’s a bit disappointed it’s a fake.

“Like he needs to go to Turkey and get the beard transplant now,” she said. “In that pic, he went from a dud to a stud. From a punk to a hunk. From ‘hiii, my name is Mark,’ to ’Sup, my name is Mark.”

It’s crazy how a little rugged scruff can change a man’s entire persona, added actress Christal Luster.

“Zuckerberg gave big zaddy energy with the beard,” Luster said.

While dating around, Luster said she’s vetoed a few guys before and then reconsidered them after they’d grown out some stubble.

“They looked like teenagers before but when they grew the beard out, I circled the block faster than the ice cream man on a hot summer’s day,” she joked. “Seriously, though, it is a nice addition to a beautiful face. Just matures them for me, I guess.”

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Luster is onto something. Studies have shown that men are rated by both sexes as more mature and more dominant when they have facial hair.

“That’s not surprising given the testosterone pathways are so involved in both dominance and facial hair growth,” said Rob Brooks, a professor of evolution at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who conducted one such study.

In the study, published in the May 2016 issue of the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, Brooks and his co-author found that women prefer men with beards and heavy stubble when looking for long-term partners and judging men’s fathering abilities.

If anyone is wondering whether or not they should grow a beard, I just spent more than half a second considering a man on a dating app bc his beard was so good before noticing he has FAMILY tattooed in 8” tall script letters across his chest

— kels (@kil_see) June 10, 2021

The researchers asked 8,520 women, aged 18 to 100, to rate photos of men (some with facial hair and some without) on physical attractiveness and on a spectrum of “relationship longevity.” Out of those women, 8,520 of them (yes, all of them) preferred men with some amount of facial hair.

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Compared to their clean-shaven brethren, the bearded men were rated higher on more traditionally alpha qualities: By and large, they were seen as more “masculine, more socially dominant and aggressive looking.”

Beardedness, the researchers wrote, “may be attractive when judging long-term relationships as a signal of intrasexual formidability and the potential to provide direct benefits to females.”

Why’s that? “It may be because it gives the face more definition in the jawline and enhances perceptions of age and masculinity,” Barnaby Dixson, the lead author of the study and a human behavioral ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, told HuffPost. (Naturally, Dixson has a beard.)

We’re not talking full-on Grizzly Adams, unbridled growth beard here, though: What straight women in the study ranked as most attractive was stubble of approximately 10 day’s growth.

This, for instance, is a good amount of growth:

Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers. (2)

Stephane Cardinale / Jon Kopaloff

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While this is too much beard:

Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers. (3)

Charley Gallay via Getty Images

“One thing we know is that the full mountain man business isn’t especially attractive,” Brooks said. “Probably that’s a hygiene and grooming effort thing that women cue in to.” (Smart of us! A 2019 Swiss study found that men’s beards contain more harmful bacteria than dogs’ fur ― ugh.)

Heavy stubble is a perfect happy medium. “It’s a tradeoff because it maximizes the attractiveness to both the beard-loving women and the anti-bearders,” said Brooks, who’s also the author of the book, “Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers.”

What about gay men’s preferences? A study Dixson conducted with men and women from Brazil and the Czech Republic suggested that, compared to heterosexual women, gay men had stronger preferences for men with more facial hair.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that beards pay off in the dating and sexual marketplace.

“They say tall men have no personality because they don’t need game, but I’d say the same for guys with the facial one inch buss downs,” joked musician Samathan Kim. “A full beard will have people hooting and hollering over an otherwise average Joe.”

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Beards, he said, “are like the male BBL.” (For the unfamiliar, that’s a Brazilian butt lift. Others have suggested that a beard is to men what makeup is to women.)

Kim grew out a goatee and mustache as soon as he could. Now, he can’t imagine walking through life shaved like a “bare skinned adult baby.” That said, without some scruff, he thinks he’d survive fine in the dating world.

“I don’t believe I’d have a harder time dating if I were to shave,” he told HuffPost. “Confidence and energy definitely factors in more than physical looks in my opinion, especially after the first few minutes of conversation.”

As for Zuckerberg’s “beard,” Kim could take it or leave it. With the beard, the No. 1 tech bro just kind of looks like a finance bro from Murray Hill, he said.

“His hairless face is already deeply ingrained in our collective subconscious, it looks like he’s cosplaying,” he said. “But he doesn’t really need a beard to pull because money is a hell of a beard.”

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“[Zuckerberg] doesn’t really need a beard to pull because money is a hell of a beard.”

- Samathan Kim, musician

Bryan Deane, a personal trainer, almost always sports facial hair. “I can only speak for myself as a heterosexual male and personally, I think my beard does add a little more sauce,” Deane told HuffPost.

Of course, there’s a deluge of dudes with beards on dating apps, so you have to keep yours looking nice and trim to stand out, Deane said.

“I’ve been told I have a really nice beard: no patches, full and thick,” he said.

Jaks Lark, a Canadian social media creator and marketing adviser, likens the widespread love of beards to another trend in men’s aesthetic: The cultural embrace of the dad bod. Both the beard and the dad bod are reassuring badges of masculinity.

“When I grow my beard out, I tend to get more responses on dating apps from people who are interested in long-term dating,” he said. “As someone who has dated both genders, I can say that men seem to be a lot more opinionated about wanting someone with a beard or wanting a clean shave guy.”

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Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers. (4)

Jaks Lark, Bryan Deane, Samathan Kim

Zuckerberg has hinted that he may adopt a more hirsute look: in a now-expired Instagram story post, the billionaire shared a photo of a razor alongside a thinking face emoji.

Lark thinks that’s a great idea, for more reasons than one: “I think Mark has always had a public relations struggle, in many of his interviews he comes off as a little robotic, and the beard really humanizes him, and adds a whole new element to his character.”

So why, given all the social benefits a beard bestows, would a man shave in the first place? That’s the question that intrigues Brooks most as a biologist.

“Why would a mature mammalian male remove his most obvious sign of dominance?” he said. “We think it may be to reduce competition and intimidation in the kinds of close-cooperation, within and between sexes, that’s required to make our complex, highly cooperative societies function.”

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In other words, Zuckerberg already has tons of your data and your time-spent-on-site; he doesn’t need your girl, too.

Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers. (2024)

FAQs

Why Are Men With Beards So Much More Attractive? We Have Answers.? ›

However, the women perceived male faces with full beards as the most masculine, aggressive, and socially mature; the women also thought these men looked older. Men's faces with light beards were considered the most dominant.

Why do beards make men more attractive? ›

Beards can accentuate the very best features of your face. For instance, due to their position on the face, a beard can accentuate your jawline, giving you one worthy of a movie star. A strong jawline is correlated with a higher level of testosterone, which women are pre-programmed to find attractive.

Why do guys like having beards? ›

One study concluded that many men believe the presence of a beard signifies manliness, gravitas, authority and standing in the community. Some men grow beards because they believe the presence of facial hair makes them look more intellectual and interesting.

Why are men with beards more respected? ›

In ancient India and most eastern cultures, beards were venerated at a higher level than almost anywhere else. Long beards stood for dignity and wisdom, strength and courage, and this is often the case today. Beards in these places were so revered that they were also used in the prosecution of crimes.

What does a beard say about a man? ›

However, if one is negatively influenced, it could lead to an excessive display of machoism, dominance, authoritativeness, and toxic masculinity. Men who like to maintain a certain shape and allure to their full-grown beards usually like to stand out in the crowd.

Why do girls like guys with beards? ›

Beards are often associated with masculinity and are thought to indicate that a man is mature, strong, and capable. 2 Beards can also be seen as a sign of maturity and wisdom, which can be appealing to women who are looking for a more sophisticated, much more experienced and intelligent partner.

Do girls like clean-shaven or beard? ›

As a result, we asked our 108 ladies which they found most attractive – a clean shaven look, a full beard, or stubble: Clean Shaven: 38.89% Beard: 30.56% Stubble: 30.56%

Should older men grow beards? ›

Facial stubble and beards can look cool at 50 to 70-plus, but so can a smooth, clean shave. The advantage of shaving is that it sloughs off dead cells and stimulates collagen production to keep older skin looking fresh.

What's it like kissing a man with a beard? ›

KISSING A BEARDED MAN FEELS LIKE NO OTHER!

It is said that planting your lips on a furry face takes kissing to a whole nother dimension, giving a more mysterious feel in comparison to skin to skin contact.

What is so special about beards? ›

“The benefit of having a beard is protection, as well as aesthetics,” says Dr. Harvey. “Its good protection against wind, chafing and traumatic injury. It's also a trend, so we see a lot of men with some form of facial hair.”

What length of beard is most attractive? ›

Shaping the perfect jawline with a medium length beard helps give your face definition, shape, angles, and an overall more masculine appearance, assuming this is what you're going for. A medium beard also allows you to shape the beard to make your face appear symmetrical, and therefore, more attractive as well.

Are men with beards better lovers? ›

Men with Beards May Be More Stable Romantic Partners, Study Says: 'In It for Keeps' Cara Lynn Shultz is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. Her work has previously appeared in Billboard, Forbes, and Reader's Digest. Wondering if someone might make a good romantic partner?

Why do so many guys have beards now? ›

Laziness? Or some other reason altogether? New research shows that beards likely evolved to help men boost their standing amongst other men. Astudy by Nigel Barber, using data on British facial hair trends from 1842-1971, found that men with beards and mustaches increased as the number of marriage-age women decreased.

Are men with beards sexier? ›

To break things down even further, the same study showed men with full beards to be the most masculine, aggressive, and socially mature, while light stubble was preferred for both short and long-term partners. In other words, anyone who wore some type of facial hair was found to be more attractive in general.

What does a beard tell a woman? ›

Women find men with light stubble most attractive, and men with full beards as most masculine. A fuller beard is perceived as indicative of good fathering ability and more investment in offspring. Some women do not care for men's facial hair at all.

What does a beard show in a man? ›

A man's ability to grow a fulsome beard isn't actually neatly linked to his testosterone levels. Despite this, a number of studies have suggested that both men and women perceive men with beards as older, stronger and more aggressive than others.

Do beards make men look more dominant? ›

Scientists have long known that beards can make a man seem more dominant and masculine. Now provocative new research involving primates shows that male facial hair is more elaborate in social groups involving intense competition for rank, dominance and attractiveness (see video above).

Do beards make you hotter? ›

Your beard keeps the moisture from your sweat close to your face. When a breeze comes through, you feel nice and cool. So if you're one of the newly bearded and worry about keeping your beard into the summer, don't. Your beard won't make you any warmer than normal.

Do guys with beards have more testosterone? ›

Since testosterone is what causes facial hair to grow, you might expect a thicker beard to be a sign of higher than average levels of this hormone. But most adult males actually have similar testosterone levels. In addition to changes like puberty, certain conditions also influence beard thickness.

What does a beard do to a mans face? ›

By growing a beard, you can keep your skin looking younger and reduce the appearance of wrinkles. Growing a beard can also prevent your skin from drying out. The skin produces natural oils that keep it soft and younger-looking, but it's all too easy to miss out on these benefits if you're clean shaven.

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