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

❤️ Valentine's Day is great, but the day AFTER Valentine's Day is spectacular! Bring on the half-priced chocolate! 🤣

In this update:

• 👄 Everything you ever wanted to know about the skin of your lips!
• 🧪 GOOW restock updates
• 🛍️ Spring vendor events
• 🔤 Which do you prefer - GOW or GOOW?
• 💅🏻 Nail updates
• 👚 $10 graphic t-shirt sale

It's been a wild couple of weeks over here at Geek Out of Water! Your response to the Smoothing Lip Treatment launch blew me away (so much that I am nearly sold out and need to make more this weekend!) THANK YOU!

👄 All Things Lips

The GOOW Smoothing Lip Treatment is a strawberry flavored gel-oil that applies like a glossy lip mask but absorbs into the skin like a lip oil.

Lips are notoriously hard to keep hydrated and smooth. (Geeky reason: lips lack a keratinized stratum corneum, so moisture evaporates more easily than from the rest of our skin). We also lose collagen elasticity in our lips as we age, and combined with environmental aggressors like the sun and pollution, it's no wonder we struggle to keep smooth, plump lips! 

Most lip plumping products take the approach of applying minor irritation to the lips to temporarily attract blood flow and invoke a slight swelling response to the inflammation. This makes lips look redder and fuller for a brief time. That's not the approach here! 

Instead, the GOOW Smoothing Lip Treatment aims for long-term plumping and smoothing without irritation. A customized form of sodium hyaluronate (a salt derived from hyaluronic acid with a very small particle size for excellent penetration) attracts and holds water in the lips for hydration and a plumped appearance, and tripeptide GHK serves to both fight off photodamage from the sun and help prevent the loss of collagen elasticity. Squalane helps lock in that moisture and prevent water loss, and also helps strengthen the skin barrier of the lips. Elderberry is rich in vitamins A and C and is healing and anti-inflammatory. Combined, you get a fantastic treatment that both immediately and over time improves the appearance of fine lines and plumpness of the lips.

This gel-oil is a great addition to your morning and evening skin care routine. Top it with your favorite lip gloss, lipstick, balm, or lip mask, or wear it alone (though it does absorb into your lips so it's not intended to be a mask or long-wear topper).

🧪 GOOW Restock Updates

Thank goodness for the snow day this past week, because I was able to spend a few hours in my little formulation lab making more Hydrating Toner, Creamy Cleanser, and Foot Repair Balm. Last weekend's vendor event wiped me out! I've also got the Creamy Cleanser available in a cute 3.35oz pump now, too - refillable just like the bottles!

I had an order with some ingredients and serum bottles that was supposed to arrive today, but now tracking is saying Tuesday. 😡 So that will delay my restock of Squalane Agave Facial Oil and Rejuvenating Serum - I'll get them made up ASAP next week (and it looks like we might be in for another snow day Wednesday or Thursday? As much as I could use the time to formulate, I'm so over winter!!)

Today I'll be making more Bakuchiol Cream (I've got ONE jar left of the unscented version!) and some more Smoothing Lip Treatment.

🛍️ Spring vendor events

Speaking of vendor events, if you're local to me in Virginia, here are a couple upcoming vendor events I'll be set up at. You can always find my full event schedule on my web site under the Local Events (VA) tab.

• Augusta Expo Spring Craft Fair - Saturday, March 1, 2025:

Augusta Expo (Indoors)

Main Hall - booth G6

277 Expo Road, Fishersville, VA [map]

• Dayton Redbud Arts & Crafts Festival - Saturday, April 26, 2025, 10am-4pm:

College Street, Downtown Dayton (Outdoors) [map]

🔤 Which do you prefer - GOW or GOOW?

Help me get off the struggle bus on this one! I'm an over-thinker by nature... let's just get that out of the way! When I designed the new logo, I split the O for a couple reasons - 1) to represent the two o's in Geek Out of Water, and 2) I liked the play on sunrise/sunset for morning/evening (think: skin care routines). To the eye, especially at a distance, though, it looks like GOW. When I type out the acronym without the logo (like in this email!), which makes more sense to you: GOW or GOOW? I've always abbreviated it GOOW, but the logo looks more like GOW at a glance... do I need to go get my GOOW license plate changed? 🤣 Which makes more sense to you? Help me out and reply to this email and let me know!

💅🏻 Nail updates

If you're in my Facebook group, you already know this... (and if you're not in my Facebook group, you should be! Come join us for beauty chat and whatever else is going on in my little corner of the universe!) For the past 5 years, I've exclusively worn Color Street dry nail polish strips (because it looks like a toddler did my nails when I paint them with wet polish, and I don't have the time or money to go to a nail salon a few times a month... but I love pretty nails!) Color Street made some changes to their business model that will make it very hard to be profitable as an independent rep as they move the product into retail stores and make it available on Amazon. Their changes don't align with how I run my businesses, so while I still recommend their nail polish strips, I decided to resign from being a stylist. If you have bought Color Street from me in the past and would like a referral to another stylist, message or email me and I'll get you in touch with my friend Lindsay who is fantastic and will be staying with Color Street.

Personally, though, you KNOW I need pretty nails! Right now, I'm trying out Kleo Kolor gel LED nail polish strips and press-on nails (a new brand in the nail space). If you want updates on my thoughts (as I've tried just about every type of press-on and nail strip on the retail market!), I'm sharing all of that over on Facebook. I signed up as a brand partner with Kleo (mainly because it was the least expensive way to get a bunch of product to try). I don't yet know if they'll become my new ride-or-die, but I am very impressed with the first gel LED set that I tried. I went live last night in the FB group to apply my very first set (it's there on replay if you're interested). So far, so good!

Secret Weapon Gel LED by Kleo Kolor. Yes, I picked all of my nails off, again. Last week was a very stressful week at work! 😢 It is not a fun time to work in any kind of government or civil service job right now. Want to buy some of my skin care?! 🤣 Kidding, not kidding?! Oy. Your girl is still dreaming of making Geek Out of Water a full-time entrepreneurial gig. Working my behind off to make it happen!

I think that's everything! I'll have a review of the Doll 10 Genius Skin serum tint foundation coming on YouTube next week, amongst other things, and now I'm off to do some filming and make some Bakuchiol Cream! Happy weekend!

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

💜 Shelly

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

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

PS - I've got a $10 graphic t-shirt sale going on now - all of my custom designs. I'm adding more sizes as we speak! Gotta get them all uploaded!