A male model has conducted an experiment on Tinder to find out what women really want.

Ben Southerst, 29, from Earls Court, London, posted profiles on the dating app with five different looks to find out which one got the most matches.

He started by posting a profile with a photo of how he really looks – with a full head of hair and a goatee beard.

After gauging the reaction for a week, Southerst then went on to post four more profiles in succession all with slightly different hairstyles including a heavy beard, clean shaven, thinning hair and completely bald.

Interestingly, Southerst found that he received the most matches – 120 to be precise – for the clean-shaven look.

“I got a phenomenal response and I was very flattered that so many women wanted to date me,” he said.

“I think that being clean shaven does make me look a bit younger and I think that might help you to get matches on a site like Tinder.”

The clean shaven look proved most popular with 120 matches

The next most successful look was the goatee beard which received a total of 85 matches followed by the heavy beard with 30.

However, while both facial hair looks proved popular with women, Southerst quickly realised that those matches weren’t necessarily looking for love.

The second most popular look was a goatee beard with 85 matches

“My one observation from the responses was that the women who swiped were a little more forward than the clean shaven fans,” he explained.

“It was obvious in most cases that they were looking for a quick hook-up rather than a boyfriend.

A heavy beard received 30 matches but Southerst found most of them were looking for a casual fling

"Stubble can definitely lead to trouble - because women tend to view men with facial hair as more casual matches.”

In comparison, the images that showed Southerst with thinning hair and as bald earned him just 12 and three matches on the dating app.

With a thinning hair look Southerst received ten times less responses than with a full head of hair

In fact, the study, which was carried out for Crown Clinic in Manchester, found that a receding hairline is likely to attract 95 per cent less responses than profiles of clean-shaven men with full heads of hair.

“It was striking just how important is to have hair to get matches on the site,” Southerst said.

The least successful look showed Southerst with male pattern baldness

“When I went on with thinning hair or almost completely bald women lost interest. The experiment showed that you are at least ten times more attractive to women when you have hair.”

Of course, it is important to highlight that Southerst's study was a social experiment and, while his findings were assured, there are various factors that could affect the difference in matches including the time of day and day of week the images were posted and how much he swiped.