Men's Beards and Women's Interests: Hipster Facial Hair Going Out of Style Soon

The contemporary hipster subculture, oddly enough, has gained notice through their beard fashions (and facial hair transplants to perfect their beards). But if we've learned anything from history, this beard trend is likely to pass, and then repeat.

Now that this beard sensation has lasted a couple of years, Australian scientists predict that it will be ending soon because "the more beards there are, the less attractive they become," the scientists say. Just like how any other style comes and goes, the same is applicable to facial hair trends.

The study, "Negative frequency-dependent preferences and variation in male facial hair," was published in the journal Biology Letters on March 24. The focus of the study was on the phenomenon called "negative frequency dependence," which is a term used in evolutionary genetics that favors rare genetic alleles over more common ones. In this case, men with beards are more favorable to women than those without.

And to apply this phenomenon, the researchers wrote, "we test whether frequency of beardedness modulates perceived attractiveness of men's facial hair, a secondary sexual trait subject to considerable cultural variation," in the study's abstract. The researchers asked 1,453 women and 213 men to rate the attractiveness of different pictures of men's face.

They provided the participants with three groups of pictures: men with full beards; men who were clean-shaven; and men who were clean-shaven, had light stubble, heavy stubble, or a full beard. The study's results supported the negative frequency-dependent phenomenon.

Both the men and women participants rated the clean-shaven, heavy stubble, and full bearded men as more attractive when they were uncommon, and vice-versa. Interestingly enough, one of the study's authors, Professor Robert Brooks, believes the tough economic times are playing a role in the latest beard trend.

"Young men are competing to attract someone when work is not easy to come by. So we might expect some aspects [of masculinity] to get turned up to eleven," he said in this BBC News article.

So when this "peak beard" frequency is reached, the women of the world are likely to get caught up in the vicious circle of attraction that exacerbates their indecisiveness, while men stare into the mirror and decide what to carve into their face on Monday morning before work.