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US woman breaks world record with 30cm-long beard

Erin Honeycutt, whose excess facial hair growth is the result of PCOS, did not shave for two years

Published: Mon 14 Aug 2023, 5:00 PM

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A woman from Michigan, US, Erin Honeycutt, has broken the Guinness World Record for the “longest beard on a living female”. The 37-year-old, who is suffering from polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), did not shave for two years and let her beard get 30 cm (11.81 in) long, according to a press release from the Guinness World Records.

Honeycutt has broken the record of 75-year-old Vivian Wheeler whose beard measures 25.5 cm (10.04 in).

Honeycutt’s excess facial hair growth is the result of PCOS, a condition which causes hormonal imbalance and leads to weight gain and irregular menstruation. Honeycutt’s facial hair started growing when she was 13 and she tried everything from shaving and waxing to using hair-removal products to get rid of them.

Honeycutt said she was “probably shaving at least three times a day” and kept removing her facial hair throughout her teen years and after growing older. However, Honeycutt partially lost her vision due to health complications after injuring her foot in 2018 and “became tired of shaving”.

Honeycutt had decided to embrace her facial hair during the Covid-19 lockdown.

“It really gave me a chance to build my confidence in growing a beard. Wearing masks really helped with building my confidence in going out in public,” Honeycutt said. She joked that the best thing about her beard is that it hides her double chin but added that it “gets stuck in everything”.

Honeycutt had her mother’s, Jill Roach, support when she decided to grow her beard. “I didn’t realise how much she was having to shave as a younger person and this is a lot that she has to go through, and it’s mainly just for appearance. I got used to it, and I can see she’s very happy about it, and that’s the main thing,” Roach said.

PCOS isn’t the only health issue that Honeycutt has to deal with. In 2018, when she injured her foot, she developed a bacterial infection called necrotising fasciitis, which causes the death of part of the body's soft tissues. After the infection, Honeycutt’s leg became septic and gangrene and she had to get the lower half of her limb amputated.

Following this, Honeycutt suffered an eye stroke after her blood pressure spiked, causing bleeds in the back of her eyes. This led to the formation of scars in her eyes and affected her vision. “It took away all my central vision. But I have perfect peripherals,” she said.

However, Honeycutt learned to remain optimistic especially after her doctor said that she would heal 3 per cent faster if she kept thinking positively.

Now, for Honeycutt, it is “really awesome” to achieve a world record for having the longest beard, something that she used to be ashamed of in the past. “I never thought that I would be able to attain or achieve a goal that would let me be in a book, and it’s just kind of a nice thing to be recognised for, even though it’s just something that happens naturally for me,” she said.

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