Be yourself. Love yourself. Take care of each other.

Hello, world! Shelly here! Time for another edition of Take Care, a weekly-ish bit of tips and updates to help you be yourself, love yourself, and take care of each other (and yourself!) I’m Shelly of Geek Out of Water.

IN THIS EDITION:

• Holy cow - how is it August already?!
• Help me pick a new logo!
• I graduated skincare formulation school! Peep some of my projects below.

How is it August already?!

I don't have an answer for that, and it sure doesn't feel like a month since I last emailed ya'll (though I have seen a bunch of you over on my Patreon in the meantime!) We had our back-to-school (aka back-to-work at JMU) soft launch this week (all the meetings), and classes start next week. I've got the lion's share of my class prep done... just a little bit to finish. I also need to finish updating my dossier to submit my application for promotion to Full Professor (the final rank I can earn on the faculty side of the fence).

And while I had enough YouTube videos pre-filmed and edited for my trip to Chicago last week, it's been insanity since I got home a couple days ago catching up on shipping orders and finishing my skincare formulation certification (more on that below!) that I'm now behind again on YouTube. Ahhh such is life! I am pretty much writing this email instead of filming something for tonight, but I'm exhausted and writing is about all I can muster today.

I can't stop thinking about this pizza... Giordano's, I miss you so much!

Help me pick a new logo!

The goldfish logo isn't going anywhere, but I've got some ideas specifically for my handmade skincare that will require some branding. So I put my very first rough ideas down in graphics today. I'd love your feedback! Reply to this email with any thoughts or which ones you like the best!

This will rely more on the acronym GOOW than the spelled out Geek Out of Water, and I will pronounce GOOW as "GO" (like, to go somewhere) and not "GOO" (like, gooey) - so I want to visually combine the Os to get that ooooo sound out of the visual representation. Right now I'm pretty much just going for the overall feel of the aesthetics.

The color scheme I'm playing with is this - mainly to use as accent colors, as black and white will remain the majority.

I have something in mind that the Os in this design symbolize (not a hurricane), but I'm curious if you "see" or interpret anything from it. If you'd like to vote, reply to this email with which number(s) you like the most and any thoughts or feedback!

Thanks for your help!!

I graduated skincare formulation school!

I did it! I completed the 5-course certification program from Formula Botanica (their International Organic Skincare Entrepreneur program). (Link is not an affiliate link - they did not sponsor my education and I am nothing more than a happy graduate! I paid for the program myself). I set an ambitious goal when I joined in May to finish it by the time fall semester started - and made my goal yesterday with 6 days to spare

The program consisted of 3 larger diploma courses and 2 smaller certificate courses:

Diploma in Organic Skincare Formulation

Advanced Diploma in Organic Cosmetic Science

Diploma in Beauty Brand Business Management

Certificate in Natural Cosmetic Preservation

Certificate in Cosmetic Stability Testing

It was the hardest thing I've done in a LONG time - probably since I finished my Master of Fine Arts degree in 2012. I don't think I'll be signing up for any more kinds of school that require me to be graded anytime soon. The anxiety!!! 🤣 I learned so much and I have so many notes and ideas and bits of inspiration to take with me into my little formulation studio. My head is spinning and I'm just relieved and proud and grateful for everyone's well wishes and support as I've missed some YouTube uploads this summer in order to accomplish this. (That's why I only got 1 video up this week... I got home from Chicago Tuesday, spent Wednesday in work meetings, and I needed to finish this program before I go back to work full time next week!)

Here are some of the projects I created in formulation school (some of which may come to my skincare product line eventually):

This was a reverse formulation project where we had to purchase a 100% natural product of our choice and reverse formulate it with identical ingredients, figuring out the techniques and percentages to get as close to the same color, scent, texture, and effectiveness as we could. It was HARD!! I discovered a new essential oil that I had a ton of fun with, blue tansy.

I chose a popular product from a local natural skincare company that has been a huge inspiration to me (their foundation is excellent - I've reviewed it on my channel in the past!) - With Simplicity Blue Dew. I won't be adding this one to my products since it's not my own formulation. But I do recommend the With Simplicity version!

This one is definitely coming to my shop! I am SO in love with it! I will be packaging it in twist-up tubes (I think!) It's a softening foot and heel balm packed with ingredients I love (babassu and sunflower and argan oils, mango and shea butters, squalane, calendula oil, eucalyptus, and a new-to-me concoction, Monoi de Tahiti oil). Between this and my beloved Kerasal foot repair, my feet are smoother than they've ever been!

The challenge for this project was to formulate something raw, meaning no components are heated over 104F. That rules out lots of butters and lotions that require emulsification as those ingredients have melting points higher than 104F. Mine was 99% raw because I wanted to include the blue tansy essential oil, which is created through steam distillation and therefore heated higher. I'll likely add a cleansing oil to my product line someday, but I'm not yet ready to deal with the problems around leaking in shipment.

And the one I'm most proud of, which I shared on Facebook when I finished it - my anti-aging project, which is a lotion that doubles as a makeup primer (sound familiar? I love the concept of lotion-as-primer! This one is a bit thicker than my bakuchiol cream with a drier finish and a little bit of added blur to the skin). I was initially bummed because our final project submission for the advanced formulation class is randomly selected from the projects we did throughout the course, and for my first attempt at the final, a small experiment was selected instead of one of the bigger projects. (Did you catch the foreshadowing? Yep, I left out a BIG key point in my analysis of the experiment, and failed my first attempt). It was a blessing in disguise, because when I made my second attempt, my anti-aging formula was the project that was randomly selected - and this is the one I was the most proud of throughout all of my studies! So I was SO excited to get professional feedback on it.

My evaluator's summary was:

"I am pleased to see such a lovely product and a confident formulator. You clearly know what you are doing. The formula is natural, adding up to 100% with very good write-up, correct INCI listing and reasoning behind the ingredient choices - a really very appealing composition. I like the depth of your observations and ideas about replacements."

I will be changing out the preservative and making one ingredient tweak based on my evaluator's suggestions before bringing this one to market, but I'm so glad to get some validation on this one. I struggle with imposter syndrome sometimes and I don't know any other cosmetic formulators to bounce ideas off of (which is partly why I decided to take these courses - to make some contacts with other formulators and align what I'd taught myself through YouTube with professional standards and techniques).

Which of these would you like to see me make available on the shop first? Feel free to reply to this email and let me know!

And here we are... all caught up from the past month 🤣 Thanks for your patience with me missing YouTube videos here and there to get through all this! I knew it was going to be a huge undertaking but I'm so excited for the future.

Thanks and remember: be yourself. Love yourself. Take care of each other,

💜 Shelly

Find me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goow

Shop my designs & handmade skin care: https://shopgoow.com

Who's Shelly?

I’m a beauty enthusiast, entrepreneur, and professor of media arts and design. I send out emails about once a week on beauty, self-care, and lifestyle with a geeky twist - plus, of course, updates on any tools I’m building for the love of beauty (like my Roll-A-Look eyeshadow color generator and upcoming foundation tools). 

What's this email about?

If you love makeup and skin care and self-care too, this newsletter is made for you! Besides life and work updates, I’ll share science-based tips and easy techniques to help you look and feel your best. Stick around for the fun. 

Let's keep in touch!

This is a collaborative space, too. Feel free to hit reply if: 

- You care about a topic you’d like to see covered here. 

- You found a useful resource or a must-have product that would help others and want to share it.

- You just want to say hi!