Are Women More Attracted To Men With Beards? | A Guest Post By Ben Sullivan

I’ve had a beard for a year now and I have seen a change in the way women look at me. Whether this is because of the beard itself or because of the way I feel while having a beard is up for debate, and so this is the debate I have chosen to have (admittedly with myself) on this blog post.

Now, I have never been the clean shave every morning type. More of the “just let the facial hair grow for a month and then shave just before people start throwing change into my coffee cup while I walk down the high street" type. Though I had always been like this since the time I first started growing facial hair, it all changed one fateful day that I am going to share with you now.

One day, a few weeks over my usual monthly shave I realised my facial hair was starting to get a little out of hand, but I was feeling way too lazy to shave the whole thing. Come on, don’t judge, we’ve all been there. I decided that instead of going through the effort of shaving the entire thing off, I would just neaten the neck beard a little and define the outline of the hair on my cheeks.

The very next day when I met up with a female friend for a drink, she introduced me to a very attractive friend of hers. My friend complimented how my facial hair looked and said how it really suited me. Her pretty friend chimed in saying how she really liked that rugged look and how she prefers men with a beard. She asked if I was growing out a beard to which I immediately replied with a “why yes, yes I am”. It was at that moment that I proclaimed (within my head) “I am no longer a man, I am a man with a beard”. She later went on to say how her boyfriend would never grow his facial hair out and how she thought men just generally looked better with a beard. After the conversation and after trying to hide my annoyance of the fact she had a boyfriend, I started thinking to myself “do women prefer a man with a beard? Is there some sort of physiological reason for this that causes them to naturally gravitate to the more traditional markers of masculinity?”

Over the months I found that I started to get stronger eye contact and smiles from random women on the street. Now, I’m not the most attractive of men by a long stretch but I’d say I’m not bad looking. The weird thing is, I don’t think the amount of random women that I would catch the eye of had changed, it was more the responsiveness of the women. 

For any of you who are into e-commerce out there, I would compare it to the experience a customer goes through when buying a product from a generic and generalised store to buying a similar product from a well branded store who care about their customer’s want’s and needs, catering to them appropriately (Well Groomed Wizard anybody?). The customer has a stronger bond with that well branded store and I feel like women have some sort of stronger bond to me in a weird way.

I now find myself asking, am I acting differently because I have a beard? i.e. a beard is a sign of masculinity and therefore I should act accordingly, and women are attracted to what manifests from that mindset or do women just like the look of a beard?

Personally, I think it is a bit of both, though I would lean towards it being more the mindset having a beard brings. I may be biased on this assumption as I am a strong proponent of self-development and I know how working on yourself and improving how you go about your life can bring positive change. This positive change can also include attracting lovely women. 

If you have a beard, try and think to yourself how the responsiveness of women has changed, if at all since growing it. Do their eyes light up a little more when you get eye contact with them? Is their body language more open and responsive to your presence? 

If you don’t usually get much attention from women, maybe just put yourself out there a little. While you are walking down the high street and you see a pretty lady, just try and get eye contact with her for a second or two (hopefully without being creepy). Does she give a little smirk? Do her eyes widen a little? Who knows what may happen if you put yourself out there a little.

In conclusion, I would say that for me personally, having a beard has reminded me that it is OK to embrace your masculinity, it is OK to go to the gym because you want to get bigger and stronger but most importantly of all, it is OK to want to attract women. 

If having a beard has made me more attractive to women because I act differently or because women are just hardwired to be more attracted to men with a beard is irrelevant. The fact that it has helped me feel more like the type of man that I want to be is what has made this man with a beard, a man with a plan.