For thousands of years, the ability to grow beards has been a very important part of being a man. In today’s world, it is optional. Some people love facial hair and others, not so much. If you fall into the category of men that loves having fuzz on your face, you might want to keep your razor nearby. As it turns out, there is a scientific study that shows something you will want to know.
Wearing beards goes in and out of favor and in recent years, it seems to be rather popular. There are many shows on TV that show men sporting a beard, such as Game of Thrones and Vikings. Of course, you don’t have to watch TV to wear a beard. In fact, you might not even own a TV and you are still going to have the ability to grow facial hair. A recent study shows that growing a beard is not exactly the most hygienic option. When they compared facial hair with dog fur, the beards lost, hands down.
Growing a beard is not something you typically take lightly. Sure, we can all grow facial hair but you want to make sure that the length is right and there are no glaring issues.
You also need to consider the maintenance. Some people grow a beard because they don’t like to shave but before long, they learn that there is a lot of work involved in having a beard.
The study showed that when you compare a man’s beard with the fur on a dog, there were more germs on the beard every time. In some cases, the level of bacteria in facial hair was at dangerous levels.
The study took swabs of 18 beards and then took a look at the necks of 30 dogs. Sure, there was a little balance issue in the numbers but they weren’t averaging things out.
Professor Andreas Gutzeit, of Switzerland’s Hirslanden Clinic, reported: “The researchers found a significantly higher bacterial load in specimens taken from the men’s beards compared with the dogs’ fur.
“On the basis of these findings, dogs can be considered as clean compared with bearded men.”
I’m sure we have your attention now. The men, between 18 and 76 showed high microbial counts on their beards.
Dogs? Not so much…
23 out of 30 dogs showed lower microbial count and the other 7 were at ‘moderate’ levels.
7 of the men had microbes to the point where it was a danger to human health.
Time to shave, or at the very least, wash your face.