\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he idea that beards are dirtier than clean-shaven faces has been floating around for decades, says John Tregoning, professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London. There is even research that\u00a0shows people perceive bearded men as\u00a0less hygienic: one study found\u00a0restaurant customers rated waiters with facial hair as dirtier. Science doesn\u2019t necessarily back that\u00a0up,\u00a0though.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.\u00a0Learn more.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n One of the earliest studies on the subject, published in 1967, looked at\u00a0how much bacteria could be recovered from men\u2019s faces after being artificially sprayed on to\u00a0their skin. Researchers compared washed and unwashed faces, both with and without beards. The dirtiest combination wasn\u2019t with a beard: most\u00a0bacteria was recovered from unwashed clean-shaven faces, followed by unwashed bearded faces, washed bearded faces and finally washed clean-shaven faces.<\/p>\n double quotation markAny part of your body, with hair or without, will have bacteria on it. It\u2019s not really a problem unless there\u2019s an open wound<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you\u2019re not going to wash your face, it\u2019s better to have a beard,\u201d says Tregoning, \u201cbut if you are going to wash your face, it\u2019s slightly better to be\u00a0clean-shaven.\u201d<\/p>\n More recent research has focused on surgeons and healthcare workers, where the question is less about general hygiene and more about whether facial hair affects infection risk in operating theatres. Results have been mixed. Some studies suggest beards can trap bacteria, while others find little difference. Much depends on how samples are taken, and most studies suggest that if masks are worn properly there is no meaningful concern.<\/p>\n Overall, Tregoning says the idea that beards are unhygienic is overblown. \u201cEverything has bacteria on it,\u201d he says. \u201cAny part of your body, with hair or without, is going to have bacteria on it. It\u2019s not really a problem unless there\u2019s an open wound. Most of\u00a0the time it\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The idea that beards are dirtier than clean-shaven faces has been floating around for decades, says John Tregoning, professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London. There is even research that\u00a0shows people perceive bearded men as\u00a0less hygienic: one study found\u00a0restaurant customers rated waiters with facial hair as dirtier. Science doesn\u2019t necessarily back that\u00a0up,\u00a0though. The Guardian\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[24827,24230,1933,24828],"class_list":{"0":"post-50565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-beards","9":"tag-hygiene","10":"tag-true","11":"tag-unhygienic"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}