Date of Award
8-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management
Committee Chair/Advisor
Dr. Felipe Tobar
Committee Member
Dr. Stefanie Ruiz
Committee Member
Dr. Alison Leonard
Committee Member
Dr. Luke Rapa
Abstract
This dissertation critically reconceptualizes makeup participation as a legitimate, multidimensional form of recreation. Through a comprehensive rapid review using the SPIDER framework of 102 peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2025, the research investigates whether and how makeup fulfills the psychological, affective, and symbolic criteria of meaningful leisure. Drawing on the Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) and broader recreation theory, the study positions makeup not merely as aesthetic behavior or consumer habit, but as a sustained, emotionally generative practice embedded in identity, creativity, personal growth, and well-being.
Findings reveal that makeup is consistently linked to confidence-building, emotional regulation, self-expression, and psychological resilience, particularly among marginalized groups such as transgender individuals, cancer survivors, minority groups, and artists. Despite these benefits, fewer than 13% of studies explicitly classify makeup as leisure or recreation, underscoring a persistent conceptual blind spot. This dissertation addresses that gap by identifying seven core thematic categories, from “Self-Image and Confidence” to “Fun, Play, or Hobby,” which together illustrate makeup's alignment with serious, casual, and project-based leisure forms.
The analysis also draws a novel historical throughline to the use of red ochre in prehistoric rituals, reframing early body adornment as one of the first symbolic and recreational acts in human history. In doing so, it asserts that play, beauty, and embodied expression are not ancillary to human evolution, they are foundational.
This work expands leisure theory to include appearance-based, affectively charged practices, and invites new interdisciplinary understandings of leisure that center aesthetic, emotional, and identity-based engagement. Implications span academic theory, therapeutic intervention, community programming, and cultural discourse. Ultimately, this research challenges enduring gendered and classed assumptions about what constitutes legitimate recreation and affirms that symbolic play, aesthetic autonomy, and the joy of adornment are not frivolous, they are serious and essential to human flourishing.
Recommended Citation
Morgan, Jason, "The Intersection of Makeup and Recreation: A 21st Century Overview of Makeup Participation and Its Recreational Benefits" (2025). All Dissertations. 4025.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4025