Have a beard? You’re not the only one. In fact, they’re getting pretty popular. We mourn them when they go, celebrate them when they’re the best, and generally take this stuff way too seriously. When will it end?
Answer: when we reach “peak beard”. What’s that? Oh, just when there are too many beards around and they become ruined. Which, judging by Queen West, is soon.
How did we figure this out? Well, we didn’t. Some scientists publishing a study in Biology Letters did. According to them, when beards were rare, they became attractive. When clean-shaven faces become rare, they’ll become attractive once more.
Researchers had pictures of men in “four states of beardedness”; one state was clean-shave, another full-bearded, and the other two midway. Men and women were shown the series of pictures, but researchers manipulated the ratios of beardedness in each set. If clean-shaven-ness was rare in a set, then subjects declared the clean-shaven men the most attractive. If bearded men were rare in a set, then they became the most attractive.
So, this can only mean one thing: at some point in the future, clean-shaven faces will be the way to go. And when that happens, we recommend picking up a straight razor.
