Beards continue to grow in popularity -- which may mean they may soon be cut out of the fashion mix, suggests a new study of female preferences from the University of New South Wales in Australia..

Researchers there say there's evidence to suggest the latest resurgence of facial hair styles may, in fact, be the reason beards may fall out of public favor sooner than later, as humans tend to be attracted to others who buck the norm and stand out from crowds.

Robert Brooks, who led the research, describes the phenomenon as "negative frequency-dependent sexual selection."

His findings about the attractiveness of beards have been published in the journal Biology Letters.

Brooks and his scientific team surveyed 1,500 heterosexual and bisexual women about how attractive they found men who were photographed while bearded, clean-shaven, and with stubble. The experiment used 36 pictures of 12 men shown at three different stages of beard growth.

It turns out that when women were shown several pictures in a row of bearded men, they tended to prefer clean-shaven individuals. At the same time, being shown a series of photographs of men without beards caused women to become more attracted to males with facial hair.

"It suggests that beard styles are likely to grow less attractive as they become more popular. And that innovative new styles may enjoy a premium while they are still rare," researchers wrote in a news release announcing the study. "Whether this scales to more nuanced judgments in the more complex and varied real world remains to be seen."

Indeed, beards have become highly fashionable, particularly over the last few years.

"The idea is that perhaps people start copying the George Clooneys and the Joaquin Phoenixes and start wearing those beards, but then when more and more people get onto the bandwagon, the value of being on the bandwagon diminishes, so that might be why we've hit 'peak beard'," Brooks said in a press announcement.

Facial hair has come and gone out of style over the course of decades, peaking in the 1890s when nine out of every 10 men sported some sort of beard growth. Then, after the turn of the last century, mustaches became fashionable. By the early 1970s, only 20 percent of men wore beards.