People all over the world grow beards and have interesting facial hair stylings, but not too many people actually know very much about beards. Facial hair actually has an interesting history and there are all kinds of whacky beard facts that people are unaware of.

Here are some of the most interesting facts about all things facial hair:

1. Guys aren’t shaving as much anymore — The number of men who don’t shave is actually up across all age groups, and now stands at 20%. Additionally, 55% of men from around the world can be seen rocking some kind of beard.
2. Shamsher Singh is the beard — Shamsher Singh of Punjab, India, had a beard that was six feet long back in the late 1990s. That’s taller than the average adult male in the United States (5 ft 10 in). However, the largest beard ever belongs to Hans Langseth. His beard was 17 ft 6 in in 1927. His legendary beard was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in 1967.
3. Bearded fellows spend a lot of time shaving — A man who shaves or tends to his beard regularly spends roughly 3,350 hours of his life inside the bathroom.
4. There are lots of hairs in a single beard — For a full beard, a person can have more than 30,000 individual facial hairs.
5. There are three benefits of having a beard — Beards increased these three things: your age, social status, and aggressiveness. In a Dixon and Vasey 2012 study, it was found that men were perceived to look older and appear to be of a higher social status.
6. Who needs sunscreen when you have a beard! — The University of Southern Queensland found that beards can block up to 95% of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
7. Beards and wealth aren’t synonyms… yet — Currently, 98% of the Forbes 100 list of the world’s richest men are actually clean-shaven. But, hopefully, for the bearded’s sake, times are changing.