

Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard, 1842-1972 [pdf] - mxfh
http://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/1976/robinson1976a.pdf

======
peteri
Need to very careful over this data. For example it was compulsory from the
Crimean war (1856) until 1916 for British soldiers not shave above their top
lip[1]. In the PDF it is stated that he doesn't exclude military pictures so I
suspect there may be quite a strong bias here.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_hair_in_the_military#Uni...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_hair_in_the_military#United_Kingdom)

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
Why bias? It's not like military is detached from fashion. The paper is very
specific:

"Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard: The men of Illustrated London
News"

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dfc
Tool Tip:

If you ever see an old journal article like this and you want to extract the
data check out g3data:

    
    
      Description-en: extract data from scanned graphs
        g3data is used for extracting data from graphs.  For example, graphs
        are typically published in scientific journals without tables of the
        actual data; g3data makes the process of extracting these data easy.
    

[http://www.frantz.fi/software/g3data.php](http://www.frantz.fi/software/g3data.php)

~~~
streptomycin
This web-based alternative is pretty great too:
[http://arohatgi.info/WebPlotDigitizer/app/](http://arohatgi.info/WebPlotDigitizer/app/)

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donquichotte
I wish there was current data.

The Hipster Peak of the 2010s will certainly make its way into the annals of
beardology, with a corresponding increase in skirt width 21 years earlier, of
course.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
[http://nypost.com/2014/02/25/hipster-wannabes-forking-
over-t...](http://nypost.com/2014/02/25/hipster-wannabes-forking-over-
thousands-for-facial-hair-transplants/)

------
adamb_
For some reason I thought this would just be a album of beard pictures... But
on viewing I realized that's probably not something HN would vote to the front
page.

~~~
zxexz
Reading this paper makes me want to see an album of the illustrations!

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delinka
I was hoping for photos to demonstrate these fashions. Alas, I will have to
imagine...

------
carlob
This reminds of a comment I saw a couple of days back [1].

Someone should really gather the data and study the influence of beardedness
on programming language success, now that we have a background to subtract!

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7298672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7298672)

------
ar7hur
The correlation between men's beard frequency and women's skirt width over
more than 100 years is remarkable.

~~~
tansey
Except the author adjusted the timelines to match them up. The skirt widths
are shifted by 21 years.

~~~
pflats
The author claims to have done that to account for the relative age
differences between the women (generally younger models) and the men
(generally older "successful" men) featured in the magazine. If that is the
case (and not just an excuse) then you might expect a bearded man to be of the
same generation as a wide-skirted woman that appeared 21 years earlier.

Even if you didn't shift the graphs, though, the data would still be striking.
It'd likely remind me of a predator-prey graph (e.g.
[http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/graph...](http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/graphpred.gif)
) which is "easily" modeled with differential equations.

------
grandalf
I once walked down the long hallway of a medical school that featured class
pictures of every year back into the 1800s. The black and white photos made it
visually apparent which years had more facial hair (until more recently when
women started being admitted).

I have always wished I'd taken the time to count the data and look at the
pattern... but it turns out someone has already done this research.

~~~
liamk
U of T medical school has a similar set of class composites which do a great
job of showing gender and race changes over the years.

------
tunap
I was happy to see the NHL's facial hair promotion end last Fall, looked like
Village People cover band auditions every night for a month. Ack!

I've been wearing a beard for 18 years b/c razors irritate my face, imagine my
elation to hear they are fashionably 'cool' again. I'm hoping this too passes
quickly.

------
yzzxy
Neal Stephenson described a very similar (fictional) paper in Cryptonomicon.
"Unshavenness as Signifier in World War II Movies."

[http://www.euskalnet.net/larraorma/crypto/slide8.html](http://www.euskalnet.net/larraorma/crypto/slide8.html)

------
trekky1700
This reminds me of the article I read this morning about beard transplants
becoming popular in NYC.

~~~
joezydeco
This one?

[http://nypost.com/2014/02/25/hipster-wannabes-forking-
over-t...](http://nypost.com/2014/02/25/hipster-wannabes-forking-over-
thousands-for-facial-hair-transplants/)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Let's not confuse the New York Post with quality journalism. The only number
mentioned is the number of transplants performed per week, and it's not
obvious from the quote that all the recipients are 'hipsters'.

~~~
hrkristian
Indeed, some may be circus women.

------
mxfh
via Conrad Quilty-Harper [1]

and here [2] is the article he wrote. Including some original research in form
of a comparison of to a current issue of the Daily Mirror.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/Coneee/status/439058586782552064](https://twitter.com/Coneee/status/439058586782552064)

[2] [http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/02/27/the-return-of-the-
bear...](http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/02/27/the-return-of-the-beard-in-
numbers/)

------
snake_plissken
I wish I could grow a beard. But my Irish-Native american heritage currently
only allows me to grow about 75 +/\- 10 hairs of blonde-reddish scraggly
facial hair. However, I have been told that during my 30s things might change.

~~~
adnam
The earlier you start with daily doses of whisky and steak, the better.

~~~
_1
No steak, potato

~~~
tommu
How long should you hold them to your face?

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buckbova
Just from day to day observance here on the west coast of the US it appears
beards are making a comeback.

~~~
ljf
Same in London, and much of the 'fashion' parts of the UK (Manchester,
Liverpool, Edinbrough)

A lot of this type of beard:
[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/07/article-2385822-1B...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/07/article-2385822-1B2EBBDA000005DC-922_634x685.jpg)

~~~
Fishkins
I've always enjoyed
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpYBT0XyvA&feature=kp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpYBT0XyvA&feature=kp)

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kimonos
This could be more interesting if there were pictures in it...

