Beards. They’re on trend, they’re pretty hot, but they’re full of poop… Or are they? The plot of the poop beard mystery started in early May on Vuz TV…

On May 1, Vuz TV published a, well, let’s be honest, a pretty sketchy report about beards. The jist of the story? Basically, that beards are full of poop. After the report was released it obviously went viral. I mean, who can resist sharing the “poop beard” story with all their bearded friends?

But after reading the supposedly scary poop beard story, we aren’t too freaked. The following are some of the details.

According to Vuz TV, via the NY Post, a group of microbiologists in New Mexico were the first to find the bacteria meandering in unsuspecting man beards. “Microbiologist John Golobic, of Quest Diagnostics, swabbed a number of beards searching for bacteria for the study and found that some of the bacteria ‘are the kind of things that you find in feces,’” reports the NY Post.

Uh, OK. “Are the kind of things” doesn’t exactly sound science-y to me.

Anyhow, it appears that the poop beard theory is based on some reasonable facts. “The key to a poo-free beard is to make sure you wash your hands regularly and avoid playing with and twirling the hair,” reports Vuz. Sure, totally reasonable. But if that’s all dudes need to do to keep their beards free of poop, doesn’t everything we touch, and subsequently touch some part of ourselves, have poop on it, too?

Yes. Yes it does. The masterminds at IFLScience have broken down the basics:

“Enteric bacteria are in the family Enterobacteriaceae and are often harmless, though some can cause disease. You, however, do not need to worry about these bacteria because they are everywhere. Phillip M. Tierno, a microbiologist at New York University, told New York Magazine that ‘we, as a society, are literally bathed in feces.’”

So, we’re all covered in poop. Thanks, science!

Related on EcoSalon

The Beard Identity: What Growing a Beard Taught Me About Gender Roles (and Maybe Even Race)

The Other Side of Sexism and the Return of The Sacred Masculine

8 Male Stereotypes to Just Get Over Already

Beard image from Shutterstock

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