As a shaving company, we keep a close eye on the state of the nation’s beards. Over the last few years, this has made for grim reading at Cornerstone HQ – there has been a surge in facial hair, with everyone from news presenters and movie stars to future kings deciding to hang up their razors. Take a look around now though, and it seems that we have reached ‘peak beard’: The clean shaven look is now coming back with gusto. But why, and why now? We decided to investigate.
According to research by evolutionary biologists, it’s all about Darwinian Selection. They asked hundreds of women to look at pictures of men with various different stages of facial hair growth, and rank them on how attractive they were. Clean shaven men won.
The team explained that the proliferation of beards amongst men in the photos meant the clean shaven look was actually a rarity, and therefore the men without stubble were seen as a better potential mating partner.
To put it another way, in evolutionary biology, when everyone does something, it’s no longer cool anymore. Growing a beard may be a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd when it’s not in vogue, but when it’s more commonplace, then the best strategy to get noticed by the opposite sex is to shave it off.
Back in June, we published this chart plotting the headline acts at Glastonbury over the last few years on the Cornerstone Groom- O-Meter. It supports the idea of a tipping point – showing a trend of ‘beard cycles’ with facial hair swinging in and out of fashion. 2014 saw Kasabian take to the Pyramid stage with some of the least kempt faces seen in recent years – a level of hairiness not attained since Hawkwind led the festival in 1981. Interestingly, that year seemed to mark the turning point for beards and long hair – culminating with Moby’s smooth look in 2001. Looking at the pattern, we believe that Kasabian could represent the high water mark of this latest beard-growing renaissance and predict that the nation will soon begin to trim it’s facial hair.
Gentlemen – it looks like that smooth chin of yours is about to become the new flavour of the month: well done for sticking with it through a rough patch, this is now your time to shine.