🎓 I'm going to skin care formulation school!

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. I hope you had a great weekend and your week is off to a good start!

Today I've got some big news, and another free sample offer for the first 5 people that have 1 or more tattoos and would like to give me feedback on my tattoo balm formula! READ ON! 🤓

It's been a wild week at GOOW (which you may have noticed since I only got 1 video up on YouTube last week - but it was my review of the new Shiseido foundation, so that was worth the wait, right?!)

The big news is...

I'm doing a thing!!

I've decided to go deeper-than-DIY with my skin care formulation skills and enrolled in an organic cosmetic formulation certificate program through Formula Botanica, a UK-based formulation school accredited by the Open & Distance Learning Council in the UK. They're an international program but focus their regulation-related content on EU standards, which are stricter than the US standards and my target to meet as I aspire to make my formulations available internationally someday.

I enrolled in a 5-course program that includes diplomas in organic skincare formulation and advanced organic cosmetic science, certificates in natural cosmetic preservation and stability testing, and a diploma in beauty brand management. By the numbers it should take me a year to complete it, but since I'm not teaching a study abroad this summer, I plan to crank away at it and maybe (?) get through it in 6 months ish? We'll see!

I completed the first big exam in the first course last night and earned a "badge of distinction" for scoring over 80% on it. It was a whole lot of math which is my happy place so I scored I'm not kidding when I say the nerd quotient runs deep here!

Anyhoooo I've got one more week of the work semester left (finals week), then a few weeks off before the summer online course that I'm teaching starts. I'll be cracking the books as a student and learning all new kinds of ingredients and formulations - and I'll take you along for the ride!

Where are my tattooed friends at?!

Who wants to help me test my latest skin care recipe - a tattoo aftercare and maintenance balm moisturizer? The first 5 tattooed people to reply to this email with a postal shipping address (US-only for now... I promise, someday I'll be doing this internationally!!) that agree to try out my balm and complete a short survey about it will get a sample of my new formula in the mail from me.

This one was tough for a couple reasons! First, I have tried a LOT of tattoo aftercare products, and so many are great (I love the Mad Rabbit line, for example) - but none are quite what I wanted. Lotions are too lightweight, but most balms are too oily and greasy-feeling. Sooooo many use coconut oil, which is a great ingredient, but massively dries out my skin. (I also can't stand the smell of coconuts - I'm looking at you, Hustle Butter). Others add synthetic fragrance ingredients, which I really don't like to use on fresh tattoos while they're healing. Second, most are not vegan, and while I'm not exclusively vegan (I eat lacto-ovo vegetarian), I do try to opt for plant-based products when I can, and I try REALLY hard to make most of my skin care formulations plant-based. I have a soft spot for bees and finding a plant-based alternative to beeswax that performs as well has been challenging!

There also aren't many DIY example formulations out there in the wild. The ones I did find were not at all the kinds of ingredients that I wanted to use in mine. So I was pretty much on my own to formulate this one! But... I did it... and I am so excited at the result that even though I destroyed a beaker in the process, I think I've got a winner! It's entirely plant-based and features essential oils and extracts that promote healing. But the best part, in my opinion, is that I pulled off what I thought might be impossible - a hint of a dewy finish that absorbs so quickly that it's dry to the touch. NO GREASY RESIDUE!

I'm so excited that I already have a name for it... but I'm going to stop here and let you all tell me what YOU think of it before I go overboard.

So if you've got a tattoo (or ten) and want to try out my balm, reply with your shipping address and I'll send you a sample and a survey!

That's all for now! I should be back to my regular 3 videos on YouTube this week - I have at least 2 in the hopper filmed... just need to edit them and get them up!

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

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

psst! I've got a 2-for-$32 discount on my bakuchiol cream/primer up on the web site right now!



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

💜 Shelly

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!