The Ridiculous Amount Of Beer That Gets Trapped In Facial Hair Every Year

Maintaining a well-kempt beard or mustache may afford a sense of pride and accomplishment in its keeper, but it's not without its challenges. When someone decides to grow out their facial hair, they're starting down a path lined with oils, creams, pomades, trimmers, and even trips to professional barbers. That is, unless they wish to emulate the wild scruff sported by Tom Hanks in "Cast Away."

In addition to grooming and styling, beard- and mustache-havers also have the matter of eating and drinking to keep in mind. More often than not, when you tell someone they have some soup in their beard, they'll tell you that they're "saving it for later." They may tell the same joke when there's beer foam trapped in their 'stache, but it's no laughing matter. You'd be shocked at how many pints of Guinness go to die in the facial hair of unsuspecting imbibers in the U.K. every year. 

Way back in the year 2000, scientific research commissioned by Guinness found that every beer-drinking person with a mustache in the U.K. traps about a pint and a half of the popular Irish stout in their facial hair each year. The findings claim that the average mustachioed drinker across the pond, of which there are about 92,370, knocks back an average of 180 pints each year. In total, that means approximately 162,719 pints of Guinness go to waste each year, rounding out to over £423 in damages.

The study, conducted by hair science expert Robin Dover, was composed of eight test subjects "using a pre-weighed tissue and a set of super accurate scales," according to The Guardian. Plenty of beer was absorbed into the test subjects' facial hair, but Dover found that the real waste culprits were the spaces between the hair fibers. Those who had both a mustache and a beard were even more likely to play host to beer waste. 

The Missouri company Whisker Dam is well aware of the epidemic of mustache-related beer loss. As a solution, they sell an eponymous copper shield that people with facial hair can clasp onto their pints for mess-free drinking. Their motto? "It's like an umbrella for your face." 

Indeed, beer drinkers with mustaches have been making use of pint guards for well over a century. The British potter Harvey Adams is said to have jump-started the idea in the mid-19th century with his specially designed mustache cup. An official patent by Ruben P. Hollinshead followed suit in 1890, meant to "[suspend] a gentleman's mustache in order to keep the same up out of the way at the table, thus preventing the annoyance which so frequently is experienced in eating soups and other like foods, and drinking tea, coffee, or other liquids by gentlemen having heavy moustaches."