Fiona McCade: Chin-stroking contemplation of the beard

WHEN I married my husband, I'd never seen him without his beard. So, after several years together, when he finally decided to reveal his naked face, it was quite a shock. Not just because of the change, but because he suddenly bore a striking and completely unexpected resemblance to Paul Merton.

This was especially strange, because when he has a beard, Paul Merton looks nothing like my husband. Anyway, without any disrespect to the lovely Mr Merton, I asked for the beard back, and Mr Me has been hairy-faced ever since.

I thought I was unusual enough in tolerating a man with a beard – albeit a short, kempt, clean affair with no infestations to speak of – but new research indicates that most women don't find clean-shaven guys as attractive as all those after-shave adverts would have us believe.

In a survey carried out by psychologists at Northumbria University, women were shown pictures of men's faces in five stages of increasing shagginess: clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble, light beard and full beard. They were then asked to rate them in terms of attractiveness, masculinity, dominance, age, aggression, social maturity and how interested they would be in each man as a short-term or long-term partner.

The overall winners were men with light stubble, with the lightly-bearded (my old man's category) coming in second. Apparently, these two groups are mature and masculine enough to warrant female interest, but without seeming to try too hard. They've passed puberty with flying colours, but don't feel the need to keep themselves looking too immaculate.

Meanwhile, the heavy-stubbled guys don't impress us, perhaps because they're neither one thing nor another. Are you desperately trying to grow a beard and failing, or do you just not care?

And there, languishing at the bottom of life's barrel of attractiveness, are the baby-faced and the fully-bearded; the two extremes of turn-off. The shaven guys don't look like they've got enough testosterone, and the beardies look like they lecture for the Open University. (Either that or they're indulging their inner lumberjack and, whatever Monty Python may say, that's not always OK.)

I find it strange that the current social norm isn't what women find most desirable. I was fully expecting the clean-shaven men to sweep the board – after all, most men in the West are bare-faced – but they were last on our list for masculinity, dominance, aggression, social maturity and long-term partnership, and only men with full beards scored fewer points in the physical attractiveness stakes, so on the whole it was a big "no thanks" to the smooth-as-a-baby's-bum boys.

All of which made me wonder: why do men shave? I recall learning that the Romans considered shaving a mark of civilisation, but since we've given up eating dormice and throwing people to the lions, I thought we might have jettisoned the razors, too.

Then it occurred to me: bless them, they've been doing it for us! Because whenever you wake up next to a fuzzy-faced Adonis and he brushes your cheek as he leans in for a kiss, what's the first thing you say? "Ow! Your face is like bleedin' sandpaper. Get a shave, will you?"

We might gaze longingly at George Clooney and his manly (yet light) stubble, but if George came for a good-morning snog, we'd be batting him away like he was a rabid wire-haired terrier. Stubble scrapes and scratches and there's no way we're spending £160 on a pot of Crème De La Mer, or even £16 on some Boots' Protect & Perfect, to let some sandpaper-cheeked chap graze away all our good work. If it's a choice between his complexion and ours, there's no contest.

But I have good news for girls who like manly men and covet beautifully clear, rash-free skin for themselves. I assure you that after the stubble stage, when your man's whiskers enter the "light beard" phase, there's no more ol' cheese-grater cheeks.

I can thoroughly recommend a light beard as a solution to the male facial hair – or lack of it – problem, because it's soft and silky, and a lightly-bearded kisser leaves no trace of abrasion whatsoever on a sensitive-skinned kissee.

If razor-blade companies have any sense, they'll look at this research and start changing their adverts. Women want slightly hairy men, and I don't think men particularly enjoy shaving, so a good slogan might be: "Not your greatest shave ever – not even close."