Facial hair (growing on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks and neck) in the form of beards, moustaches and sideboards (aka sideburns or side whiskers) is often depicted on male dolls, with the latter two actually being different types of beard. A man’s beard is often an intrinsic and important part of his culture or status and so may be a significant aspect of a traditional costume.
Beards in humans are a secondary sexual trait (heighten attractivity to the female of the species), but they apparently have a protective function too (against the cold, the sun or blows to the face). There is some genetic variation in beard growth and some ethnicities like men from the Far East (China, Japan) have less beard hair which mainly grows around the mouth and so dictates the style of beard worn. Some Native Americans also do not have much beard growth, but again the amount of growth depends on a person’s genetics, though the wearing of a beard is a personal decision as in other ethnicities (Fig. 14).
Beards have been worn by men from prehistoric times onwards, although the styles have varied widely depending on factors such as the prevailing cultural-religious traditions and the fashion trends of the particular era. As a beard is a natural phenomenon in humans, what is interesting is when men started to remove their beards: it is known that beard removal has been around since the cave man as apparently the earliest depictions of men without beards come from cave paintings from ca. 30,000 BCE. Whether or not these human ancestors shaved or plucked their beards is not known. The removal of beards is thought to have been for hygienic other health reasons; for example, during the Ice Age (ca. 11,000 BCE), sharp tools (rocks and shells) were used to trim facial hair as a heavy beard would most probably often caused frostbite when water vapour from a man’s breath froze in his facial hair.
Various styles of facial hair can be seen in the dolls shown below, from beardless (too young to have started a beard; Fig. 11) or clean shaven (irrespective of whether the beard is shaved off or plucked; Figs. 1, 9 & 14) to a full beard (Figs. 2, 5 & 10). Many of my adult male dolls are clean shaven.* Beards plus separate moustaches (Figs. 6, 7 & 13), moustaches on their own (Figs. 3, 4, 8 & 12) and sideboards (Fig. 4) are also depicted. Some dolls have their beards painted on or the beards are made from natural (Fig. 6) or artificial fibres (Fig. 5).
*Some male dolls are even made using female doll forms. Women do have facial hair, and some even develop full beards as about one in 14 women have hirsutism, a condition where “excessive” hair appears in a male pattern on women’s bodies.
Sources of information
“Can native americans grow beards” from