Do Women Like Men with Beards? Survey Results: 100+ Women

Summary: Cut Throat Club carried out a study, surveying over 100 women and found that overall women preferred men either clean shaven or with a well groomed beard. We go into more detail in this article and break down the results by age group.

What do women want? This is a seemingly simple question, but it is one of the greatest mysteries in the known universe. Men and even women themselves have tried to find the answer for millennia to no avail. Women remain elusive, alluring, and out of reach – like the mythical Siren.

Perhaps we need to narrow down the question and start simple instead of coming up with a grand solution? How about we start with something basic like facial features? Do women prefer facial hair or a clean-shaven man? How about the style and grooming of the beard?

This is a great starting point and we have done the hard work and research so men around the world don’t have to! We produced a simple 3-step questionnaire and surveyed 108 women aged 18-60 about the curious case of male facial hair. You can see our findings below and we discuss what they mean for your chances with the ladies! 

Question 1 – Which do You Find the Most Attractive on a Mans Face?

We started with a simple question and it was first important to ascertain if women even like facial hair. 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% 

Clean shaven has a slight edge here and I was confused as I always thought women like facial hair? The margin isn’t huge though so it seems its more of a personal preference and there isn’t any clear winner.

We broke down the results by age [See chart below]

Interestingly enough, the results stayed fairly consistent across the 18-29 and 30-44 age ranges and it was only with the 45-60 group that we saw a difference. These discerning ladies appear to favour the clean-shaven look and the beard drops to just 21%!

I can understand this though, for older generations, facial hair wasn’t trendy and you were essentially seen as a tramp if you had a beard or stubble in ages past! Indeed, my beloved mother still tells me to “get a shave” every so often bless her!

Question 2 – Which do You Think Looks More Professional in a Working Environment? 

So, we know that the clean shaven look has a slight advantage, but there really isn’t any huge negatives to having a full beard or stubble either… amazing, so we are back at square one?

Ahem, moving on, our next question focused on the workplace instead to try and get some concrete answers. We spend most our lives at work afterall so getting the right look for the office is essential.

To that end, we asked our 108 superstars which they thought was more professional-looking for the workplace:

• Clean Shaven: 75.00%
• Beard: 16.67%
• Stubble: 8.33%

I was surprised at these results too! I assumed facial hair would be more accepted in the workplace today but clearly if you want to look respectable then you need to lop it all off and go clean shaven! 

I mean of course, if you go into a board meeting with a straggly mess of facial hair that hasn’t been trimmed in weeks you may not create the best impression! But surely a finely trimmed and groomed beard gives an air of professionalism? Obviously not!

We broke it down further by age [See below]

The older women were virtually in unison on this question too! 91% of the 45-60 age bracket preferred the clean-shaven look, and all of them thought that having stubble in the workplace was worse than being a convicted murderer!

In contrast, the younger women in the 18-29 age range were generally more open-minded and only 65% of them thought that the clean shaven look was the most appropriate for the workplace.

Question 3 – If Your Male Partner Has Facial Hair, Which Would You Prefer?

Ok, we are getting somewhere now! So, we now know that the clean-shaven look is generally the way to go if you don’t want to look like a complete disgrace at work!

But what about at home? What does your partner REALLY think of your facial hair? Are they simply placating you and don’t want to offend you and don’t want to tell you that your beard looks disgusting? To find this out, we asked our female panel what they would prefer their male partner to have:

• Natural Beard with no Grooming: 7.41%
• Natural Beard with lines straightened & trimmed: 46.30%
• Stubble with straight lines: 22.22%
• Clean shaven: 24.07%

The truth’s out now! So, if you have facial hair, your female partner will basically prefer you to keep it neat and trimmed if possible! This was by far the clear winner, but it made me chuckle that 24.07% of the women would prefer that we simply shave our beard off completely!

We broke it down further by age [See below]

Again, we see a slight difference in tastes based on the different age ranges and the 45-60 group was split 33% to 38% between clean shaven and a groomed beard. It seems that the younger generation of women was far more accepting and open to the concept of facial hair and 58% of the 18-29 range preferred a groomed beard.

Keeping Your Beard Wild and Tangly is Not the Way to a Woman’s Heart!

I was quite surprised at some of these results. Who would have thought that most women don’t want a man with a tangled mass of untidy hair on their face? This really explains why I’ve been single for the last 6 years – that’s it, it’s definitely my facial hair and not by terrible personality or bad habits!

So, what do women want then and how can we attract them? Simply put, we either need to be clean shaven like a baby’s bottom, or have an immaculate beard that has been styled, trimmed, and groomed to perfection! Either way, you can benefit from a top notch set of shaving gear so why not check out our store today and see what you can find?

And under no circumstance does a women want a wild unkempt beard that has never been groomed… on that note – I think I’ll go find my razor!