<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"   A new survey has produced some very interesting facts about beards and in particular about whether women find them attractive or not. Now, I find facial fuzz fascinating. Imagine being able to cover the entire lower half of your face in fur. If I could I&amp;#039;d grow a Gandalf-sized number that I would fling angrily over my shoulder whenever I was annoyed. Sadly hirsute women aren&amp;#039;t exactly &amp;#039;on-trend&amp;#039; at the moment. Julia Roberts tried \u2013 and failed \u2013 to get everyone to embrace armpit hair, but I think even she&amp;#039;d blanch at a goatee. Hairy men, however, are a totally different matter. Beards are in. Or at least they must be judging by the amount of hairy farmhand-lookalikes wandering around at the moment. There&amp;#039;s even a name for them: urban lumberjacks. According to urbandictionary.com an urban lumberjack is &amp;#039;a city dweller who makes a habit of wearing plaids and flannel although he or she has little to no outdoor experience&amp;#039;. And obviously a beard is essential when attempting to look outdoorsy, which exactly proves what my friend Kate said - &amp;quot;You could work in a post office and hate music and nature, but grow a beard and it&amp;#039;ll immediately make you look like you&amp;#039;re in a band and chop down trees in your spare time.&amp;quot; And only a fool would argue that a tree-chopping musician isn&amp;#039;t sexy.  My boyfriend Ben has a stubbly beard and I love it. It makes him look rugged and capable, like he could carry an injured goat up a mountain while simultaneously playing the lute. Surely everyone fancies a bit of beard now and then? Well, apparently not. A new survey by scientists in New Zealand and Samoa (and published in the journal Behavioral Ecology) found that out of 200 women asked, nearly all preferred clean shaven men, saying the beardy ones looked older and more aggressive. The women were shown pictures of 19 different men all with &amp;#039;full beards&amp;#039;, which was classified as six weeks growth without shaving or trimming. Now obviously a &amp;#039;full beard&amp;#039; isn&amp;#039;t stubble and I know some women can feel quite strongly about big bushy beards, but really, nearly all the women didn&amp;#039;t like them? In disbelief I decided to conduct my own survey and after qualifying what I meant by &amp;#039;beards&amp;#039; (facial hair, not fake girlfriends of secretly gay men \u2013 although lots of my friends had very strong opinions on this), the people I asked backed up what I&amp;#039;d originally thought: facial hair is mostly excellent. There are, however, a few rules: if it&amp;#039;s long enough to catch food, it&amp;#039;s too long; if it&amp;#039;s completely ginger and the man&amp;#039;s hair is not ginger at all, it&amp;#039;s got to go; if it&amp;#039;s a bit bum fluffy just concentrate on maintaining the moustache area; it has to be well maintained and regularly trimmed at all times.  So in conclusion, regarding the question to beard or not to beard, the answer is clearly: to beard. As long as beardy men follow these simple rules I believe they&amp;#039;re destined for a life of hairy happiness. SEE THE CELEBS WHO GO FROM BEARDY TO CLEAN SHAVEN  READ THE 10 BEST SEX TIPS FROM COSMO&amp;#039;S FORUM USERS LOOKING FOR A DATE? LOG ON TO COSMO DATING "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/love-sex/sex/a15303/Jo_Usmar_asks_do_you_prefer_men_with_beards_or_no_beards/>