Men may be more likely to grow a beard when they are ready to settle down, a study has found.
Beards require more care and attention than being clean-shaven, scientists say, and they believe men who are prepared to invest time, effort and money into growing facial hair are more likely to swap single life for domestic bliss.
A study led by the University of Padua in Italy asked more than 400 men aged between 18 and 40 about the motivation for having a beard,
Ah, they asked Italian men.
Beards require more care and attention than shaving, eh? Seriously people, seriously…..
I have a bit of a beard because I’m too sodding lazy to shave.
I get around to it once every 10 days or so, or if I am going to have to be neat.
My missus maintained that men who grow beards have something to hide.
Well, yes, I can believe that – it’s probably quite a fine line between ‘sensible’ and ‘homeless tramp’, I would imagine.
Must admit I tried growing a beard once Tim. Trimming the damn thing was more of a nuisance than just shaving the hair off.
I’m not married. So perhaps I’m just one of the odd types that this argument applies to?
To me it seems to be more about following the herd. Like tattoos, beards are popular at the moment so, if you are worried about fitting in, you have to have a beard and some tattoos.
In universities there is a common rule that at least one of the academics must be bearded. How the female-rich departments of grievance studies cope I don’t know. Maybe the trannies wear beards?
Why do Italian men grow moustaches? To look like their mothers.
Italian men require more care and attention than other men.
Shirley its: swap single bliss for domestic life?
Beards require more care and attention than shaving, eh?
Well, there’s all that trimming and oiling and combing and whatnot. Unless, of course, one is actually going for that Grizzly Adams look…
I grew a beard because it was easier to trim the beard once every two weeks than to shave every day (or every few days) – I definitely don’t spend more time on it than I would have spent shaving…
RationalAnarchist said:
“I grew a beard because it was easier to trim the beard once every two weeks than to shave every day (or every few days) “
Yup, me too.
Looked scruffy if I didn’t shave every day, but the beard looks much the same for ten days, so trimming it is a once a week job at most. Trimming takes a bit longer than a shave, but not twice as long, never mind seven times. Other than that, it’s just an extension of the hair; wash it in the shower and comb it; doesn’t take noticeably longer than just doing the hair did.
Definitely much less hassle over the week. But then I’m not a poncy Italian, rubbing stuff into it and hiding the grey ones.
Growing it out was a bit of a hassle, but I did that during lockdown house arrest; if the government wasn’t letting me out to meet people, I wasn’t going to shave.
Philip Scott Thomas- this is why its relevant its the rationale of Italian men. For them beard means more grooming. For alot of Brits, it means a less, a lot less.
I grew a beard long before I was married… I was 22 at the time, very “baby faced” and resented being asked my age in pubs all the time. I still have one due to a mixture of inertia and being too lazy to shave it off, and a serious concern that if I do shave it off I’ll discover that I’m actually Martin Borman.
I don’t save much time though, I still have to partly shave every couple of days otherwise I end up resembling a nervous sparrow peering out of a hedge.
If you’re over 40 and don’t want to look like a tramp – or that you have merely let yourself go – permanent beards definitely take more maintenance than three minutes at the sink/shower for a shave.
I usually have a beard during the winter months, I have a beard trim along with the routine haircut and that takes care of things. Most probably cheaper to buy a trimmer and do it myself more regularly, but doesn’t cost enough to push me to do that
I grew my beard when I was 20. I still have it,so that is 66 years so far. It used to be dark auburn, but is now white. It still seems to grow at the same rate as before even though my hair has given up and disappeared somewhere along the way. Does it take any maintenance? No, it gets trimmed once every six weeks or so at the local barbers, and that is it. I originally grew it because I hated shaving and thought to hell with it, why do something you hate.
Tsk tsk tsk! All of you citing silly old facts. Didn’t you see… “scientists say”? It’s the science, people, IT’S THE SCIENCE!
If you’re over 40 and don’t want to look like a tramp
Maybe somebody should tell Sir Ian McKellen that.