Heavy stubble. That's the short answer, and it comes from the largest body of research on the question.
The longer answer is more useful, because attractiveness isn't the only thing a beard signals — and what women rate highest depends entirely on what you're asking them to rate.
What the Research Actually Found
In 2013, Barnaby Dixson and Robert Brooks at the University of New South Wales photographed ten men clean-shaven, with five-day stubble, with ten-day stubble, and with a full trimmed beard. They showed the photographs to 351 women and 177 men, who rated each face for attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting ability.
Women rated heavy ten-day stubble as most attractive by a clear margin. Full beards, light stubble and clean-shaven faces all scored similarly lower.
But the full beards won on the other measures. Bearded faces scored highest for perceived parenting ability and health. And masculinity ratings climbed steadily with every increment of facial hair — the more beard, the more masculine, in a straight line, for male and female raters alike.
Clean-shaven men came bottom of the masculinity scale.
Short-Term Versus Long-Term
A larger 2016 study by Dixson and colleagues put the question to 8,520 women, this time varying facial hair alongside digitally manipulated facial masculinity.
Facial hair improved attractiveness ratings when women were asked to judge men as long-term partners, and not when judging short-term ones. Beards and stubble also blunted the effect of extreme facial masculinity or femininity — a beard, in effect, covers over faces that are too soft or too hard.
Why the Studies Seem to Contradict Each Other
An earlier study by Neave and Shields found light stubble most attractive, and full beards most masculine, dominant, and older-looking. Dixson and Brooks found heavy stubble on top.
The difference is largely in what counted as "stubble". Beard research is unusually sensitive to how the stimulus photographs were made and how long the men were told not to shave. An early Dixson and Brooks paper, widely reported as proof that women dislike beards, had compared freshly shaved faces with six weeks of untrimmed growth. Nothing in between.
The pattern that survives replication is this: masculinity rises with facial hair; attractiveness peaks somewhere in the middle.
Beards Are More Attractive When They're Rare
A 2014 paper by Janif, Brooks and Dixson found something more interesting than any of the above. Beards are rated more attractive when beards are uncommon, and less attractive when everyone has one. Preference tracks scarcity.
Which means the answer to "do women prefer beards" changes depending on what everyone else is doing that decade.
What This Means for You
Very little, honestly. These are averages across hundreds of raters, and preferences vary enormously between individuals. A study can tell you what a population tends to rate higher. It cannot tell you what the person across the table thinks.
What it does suggest: a well-kept beard reads as mature, healthy and paternal. A badly kept one reads as neglect. The research consistently finds that grooming matters more than length — the full beards that scored well were trimmed.
Which is the part you can control. Beard oil and beard balm won't make it grow. They'll stop it looking like you gave up.
Beard FAQs
Do women prefer beards or clean-shaven?
Research consistently finds heavy stubble rated most attractive by women, with full beards, light stubble and clean-shaven faces rated similarly lower. Full beards score highest for perceived health and parenting ability.
Do beards make men look more masculine?
Yes, and linearly. Ratings of masculinity increase with every increment of facial hair, from clean-shaven through to full beard, among both male and female raters.
Are beards more attractive for long-term relationships?
The 2016 Dixson study of 8,520 women found facial hair improved attractiveness ratings for long-term partners specifically, and not for short-term ones.
Does it matter how many other men have beards?
Apparently so. Janif, Brooks and Dixson (2014) found beards are rated more attractive when they are rare and less attractive when they are common.
Does a beard need looking after?
The bearded faces that rate well in these studies are trimmed and kept. Length is not what's being rewarded — upkeep is.
Comments (1)
in my opinion beards are not attractive. Men look much younger without it.
Also it holds sweat sometimes food particles and if not maintained well
does nothing to enhance their looks. Sorry Hair on the chest yes not on the
face. only my point of view