Over half of Scottish women like clean shaven look

Could beards be waning in popularity with the fairer sex?

Over half Scottish women surveyed preferred clean shaven look.

The majority of Scottish women don’t think a beard is a good look for a man according to a survey by Censuswide. Over half (66 per cent) of the women surveyed in Scotland state that clean shaven is the perfect facial hair type.

A third (33 per cent) of female respondents in Scotland would prefer a man to have grey hair rather than a big bushy beard and another 33 per cent preferred lots of tattoos to beards.

Across the UK 52 per cent of women cited their least favourite thing about big beards is the fact that they are unhygienic, closely followed by 49 per cent of women fearing errant food stuck in the facial hair. Scottish women believed that being clean shaven was most preferable (60 per per cent) on a wedding day, closely followed by 54 per cent preferring it at job interviews

The research - which interviewed over 2000 UK respondents - claimed that men with longer facial hair are more likely to have been in a fight, have cheated on their partner and to have stolen something.

Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe); Jamie Fraser (Sam Heugan) in a scene from the "Outlander" TV series. Picture: Nick Briggs/Showcase/Shaw Media

In the nationwide research, commissioned by video social network eva, 45 per cent of British men with a goatee admitted to having enjoyed some fisticuffs, compared to 29 per cent of peace-loving clean shaven men. In regard to cheating on their respective other, long mustachioed men were the worst culprits with 47 per cent admitting to being unfaithful, compared to 20 per cent of clean-shaven men. Finally, 40 per cent of men surveyed with a goatee admitted to having stolen something, compared to just 17 per cent of their clean-shaven counterparts.

Jens Wikholm, Multi-award winning fashion photographer and Co-founder of eva, the video social network, comments: “Fashion changes so quickly, the beard trend is one that comes in every decade or so, but we might be seeing the end of current beard cycle. It definitely seems that women seem to prefer the clean shaven look and fashion will respond to that. Times change and trends shift, so men who want to stay on the bleeding edge of popular fashion might want to think twice before they let their facial hair get too long.

“We commissioned this research to drive awareness of what the general population thinks of the humble beard, and the survey yielded fantastic insight into people’s opinions on this quite divisive topic! That’s exactly what we’ve set out to achieve with eva, engaging real communities of people to express their thoughts and feelings through video in a way never previously seen on a social network.”