Begone filthy beards

IT’S THE headline hipsters should heed. Albuquerque TV reporters armed with cotton buds have made the disturbing discovery that a bloke’s beard can host the same sort of faecal bacteria as a toilet bowl. I shall never look at my husband’s hirsute chin – or its apparently bog-standard bacteria – the same way again.

My man was clean shaven when we met. I’m not sure what wrought the change, though I suspect his scruffy chops are less of a sartorial affectation and more of a byproduct of flat batteries in his electric shaver. Or the irony of male pattern baldness, in which the hairs on his head seem to be heading south, like migrating birds, to nest around the sides of his face.

To be honest, it should come as no real surprise that beards are filthy beasts. How many men do you know who’d admit to shampooing and conditioning their facial forests, let alone raking them for litter?

Many winters ago, I interviewed the bearded British botanist and environmentalist David Bellamy in Taranaki. I can clearly recall two things about that July day: the vase of enormous, early-flowering, candy-pink ‘Pukeiti’ rhododendrons on our cafe´ table, and the fact that Bellamy ordered a bowl of pumpkin soup.

I remember the soup not just because it’s my least favourite flavour, but because a generous dollop of that tangerine gloop landed in Bellamy’s beard, where it jiggled uncomfortably throughout our entire conversation.

If, for table manners alone, we can now agree that old man’s beards must go, what modish grooming fad should replace them?

Women, at least, have the Duchess of Cambridge and baby Princess Charlotte to look to for style cues. But sadly, though Prince George can get away with cardies and cute shoes, no one appears to have told his dad that men in their early 30s should never sport stiff collared shirts under V-necked casual jerseys.

Piercings, tattooed forearms and fob watches have all had their day; Justin Bieber has ruined it for the Brylcreem quiff; and even Bruce Jenner isn’t game to try the man-bagel with his new hair extensions.

I say bring back the lapel boutonnie`re or buttonhole.

There was a time – granted, was almost a century ago – when men in suits could stop at flower merchants on their way to work to pick up a pre-prepared sprig of something to shove through their lapels, but these days buttonholes are rarely seen outside of weddings. (The tradition dates back to ancient Greece, when grooms donned sprigs of herbs to ward off evil spirits with an eye on their brides.)

At my local Country Women’s Institute, it’s still tradition to celebrate members’ birthdays each month with a buttonhole posy.

And when the lady who used to make them retired from the committee this month, I volunteered to fill the vacancy.

Buttonholes are fun to make and, unlike quilting or knitting or

’How many men do you know who’d admit to shampooing and conditioning their facial forests?’

crocheting – they don’t require any special skill aside from flexible fingers, a roll of green floristry tape and a garden to raid.

You can be conservative with carnations and rose buds framed with asparagus fern or camellia leaves, make boho-chic buttonholes of silver cineraria and sweet alyssum, or go gothic with foraged blackberries, rusty-red sedums and rudbeckia seedpods.

I’ve even whipped up a wedding buttonhole for The Bachelor. Should Matilda and Arthur actually go the distance, I propose this manly mini-bouquet of Michael Hill-purple wallflowers (no reality show contestant can claim to be one), parsley (symbol of entertainment), forget-me-nots (from Dani) and, of course, kale.

And should the relationship wilt? Art can bung my boutonnie`re in his blender and make a paleo-approved smoothie.