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What are the evolutionary advantages of growing a beard? part 2

Having hair on you face – but not your head – can lead to big time savings, explains one reader

27 May 2026

2GYH6HN Irkutsk, Russia - July 28, 2021 Barber shop street advertisement, mannequin head with bushy beard

Alexey Emelyanov/Alamy

Martin Pettinger
Keymer, West Sussex, UK

The time savings from beard growing mentioned by Peter Bursztyn in response to this question (25 April) are nothing to the savings that can flow from being both bearded and bald. Like Bursztyn, I ceased shaving in the 1970s, then went rapidly bald. To his savings of time can be added the time saved from avoiding haircuts: 600 hours or 25 days (1 hour, 12 times per year over 50 years). Avoiding 600 cuts at, say, £15 per cut, also amounts to a financial saving of £9000.

 

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