A recent study posits that the optimal facial hair styling for men in sales or service positions is bearded, according to Fast Company. The findings come from a paper in the Journal of Business Research. Over a series of five different experiments, researchers tested people's reactions to various facial hair styles, including clean-shaven. What they found was that customers considered men with beards to have greater expertise and therefore were more trustworthy than those with any other facial hair style. This was found to hold true regardless of race, ethnicity, attractiveness, or likability and also held true for both online and in-person sales. Therefore, consumers are more likely to buy something from a bearded salesperson than one with a mustache, stubble, or no facial hair at all. The researchers posit as a potential reason a bias towards masculinity as a proxy for competence, citing previous literature that found people perceive those with beards as having more masculine traits.

The paper itself does not seem to talk that much about beard styles, however. One of the experiments varied beard length but there were only two degrees of variation—either stubbly or clean-shaven, which does not really address the question of whether it is any beard that has this effect or only specific types. While a neatly shaven and well-groomed beard might confer competence, it is unknown whether a grizzled old prospector beard, for instance, would convey the same image outside, perhaps, the gold mining industry.