Before You Start
We followed the procedures outlined by the Fairy Wings Mutual Aid collective, with a few minor changes. In fact most of this page is copied from their write-up of producing transdermal estrogen! The process of producing a usable form of estradiol is pretty straightforward. That being established we strongly encourage you to poke around and learn as much as you can on this topic. None of us are experts and we would all benefit from learning from each other. Furthermore, the way we chose to go about this is not the only way. We could have also bought a pill press and a binding agent and cranked out estradiol pills that could be taken orally. We also could have produced injectable estradiol. We could have looked into making blockers. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses and in the end the correct approach is the one you and your friends are most excited about pursuing.
We’ve broken this section down into 5 parts: project infrastructure, first steps, ordering materials, making a batch, and distribution. Each section includes a general idea of what to do in bold followed by detailed instructions and notes.
For reference, all of the instructions below have been calculated for a batch that starts with 11 grams of estradiol because it was more cost effective. We purchased 100 grams total and broke it into 9 batches.
Furthermore, the formula that we used is based on a patent (technically two patents) we found for a transdermal birth control product. The patent describes a product that is 0.24% active ingredient, which is split between a progestin (0.18%) and estradiol (0.06%). We modified this patent to include only estradiol at 0.24%. Thus, it’s the same amount of active ingredient but is otherwise unchanged. We recommend that you look over these patents to get an idea of what we’re doing and why and to make sure we’re not missing anything. A copy of these patents, in addition to the spreadsheets we used to calculate the amounts of each ingredient, and other helpful information can be found here.
Project Infrastructure
The first step in this, or any project is to get together with your friends and comrades and see who would like to help make it a reality. If you don’t have a network of trusted friends that are interested in helping try going to the closest anarchist bookstore or community center and see what projects you can help out with. Hopefully you will develop friendships with people through working together on shared projects. If all goes well eventually Boobs Not Bombs can be one of the projects you all can add to your repertoire!
Before/during/after starting a Boobs Not Bombs please send an email to fairywingsma@protonmail.com (the group who originally came up with the transdermal estrogen recipe) or mablesbakerymutualaid@proton.me! We would love to help in any way we can and learn from each other’s experience. If nothing else it’ll be nice to be in touch with other people working on the same project. In addition, if you come across any helpful materials we can include them on this site or in the public cryptpad repository.
To work on this project on your computer we recommend that you get a Tails stick. This is a USB flash drive with the Tails operating system installed on it. Tails is a highly secure operating system that only connects to the internet via the Tor network and saves absolutely nothing to your hard disk. To download a copy of Tails have a friend that already has a Tails stick clone it. If you don’t know anyone with Tails you can download it and read a full set of instructions at tails.boum.org. If this process seems overwhelming find a computer savvy friend to help you.
Once this is done start your computer running tails and create an email account with which to contact vendors. It is strongly recommend that you only sign in to this email or anything else that directly relates to your Boobs Not Bombs project from within Tails. Remember that Tails and Tor are not magic. If you sign into your personal email account at the same time as you sign in to your BnB email you will have associated the two. So, ONLY work on one project at a time when using Tails.
To prepare for ordering and receiving shipments get together with your friends and find out how you will receive packages anonymously. The easiest way would be to get a friend that isn’t directly involved in the project to receive the package for you. Ship it to them under their own name and then pick it up from them once it’s arrived. Receiving packages on behalf of BnB is a great way for people to help the project while limiting their involvement. Other ideas include getting packages shipped to a friendly community center, or shipping to your own houses if the packages are spread out. For example maybe one person will order the propylene glycol and have it shipped to themselves and another person will order the diethylene glycol monoethyl ether, still a third person will order and receive the alcohol. Doing it in this way reduces the chances that any investigation will be able to determine the pattern of purchases. If someone is receiving a package it’s usually best that they pay for the package using their own payment methods and then you give them cash reimbursement. Some people can receive multiple packages if the things they’re receiving are especially not sketchy, such as scales and glass jars. With all of this in mind, you should always try to reduce online purchases as much as possible. Wherever possible try to buy things with cash in person. Do you need to buy glass overflow jars online or can you get them from a thrift store with cash?
Like all projects you will need an amount of money and/or resources to get started. Fundraise discreetly among friends to get the necessary money. You should be able to do all of this for about $2000. If you’re able to we absolutely recommend trying to get more than this to allow for fuck ups and unexpected problems. This money should be kept as cash in a secure location and should be well accounted for. Keep track of how much money goes in and how much has been spent on each item. This is mostly so you can see how much money you have left for things as well as where you can try to reduce expenses in the future, in addition to transparency.
Your operation will also need a physical location to operate out of. An empty bedroom is big enough, though we don’t recommend using a bedroom that anyone lives in. This is because this project requires a fairly large amount of stuff and it would be difficult to store everything in a room that’s already filled with someone’s personal possessions. You should also think about security here: wherever the project is based out of should be secure. We recommend finding a friend who lives alone with a spare room or a friendly community center that is willing to rent a room to a member of the project. Do not mention BnB officially, just rent it as a personal room. Draft a lease that stipulates that your room is not to be entered into without your permission and leave a lock on the door. This both protects you and the community center. The community center is protected because in the event you get busted they have a lease to provide legal cover: they as landlords are not responsible for what their tenants do. For extra security you may wish to store different materials in different locations – glassware and lab equipment somewhere other than the raw estradiol, for example.
Create a cryptpad spreadsheet to keep track of your finances. This includes managing your money and keeping track of any and all prepaid cards. Make sure to keep track of any/all of these cards, including where they are, how much is on them, what they’ve been used for so far, and the billing information attached to them. For example if a website requires you to put in a billing address for the card make sure you write down which billing address has been used for which cards. This is to prevent the card from getting rejected due to using contradictory information.
Finally, a note on formatting. For the rest of this section we’ve provided detailed step by step instructions on how to produce and distribute hundreds of years worth of estradiol. For each section there are numbered points that say in bold the simple version of what to do. If you want to learn how to do things on your own you can simply follow those points and try to figure it out from there. If you’d like more info we’ve included bulleted notes on how exactly to do this. We’ve also included how much to budget for each item. As always, do not assume that we’re especially smart or know the best way to do things. We don’t. In fact we greatly look forward to receiving emails from people saying things like, “why did you do X like this? You could have done Y thing instead and it’s so much easier/faster/cheaper!” So please experiment, learn more than us and then let us know how you did it!
First Steps
Purchase and test 17beta-estradiol – Cost: $800 ($300 for estradiol, $500 for the test)
Fairy Wings Mutual Aid writes that raw estradiol can be purchased directly from manufacturers listed on the Estradiol PubChem page. Generally, the prices they quote are prohibitively expensive. In addition many manufacturers will only ship to businesses or research institutions. This is not to say that’s an insurmountable hurdle however – finding a friend with an .edu email address and an address for packages may be sufficient.
Alternatively, you can message gray market vendors from China. As an example Hanzhong Han Traceability Biological Technology Co. Ltd. To find more vendors just try searching “estradiol suppliers china” on duckduckgo. Beware: scams abound and there is little recourse. Do as much internet research as you can, including bodybuilder. They usually sell bulk amounts of estradiol however you can expect the quality might be lower as a result. To get in touch with any vendor email them from your secure email account. When it comes time to pay see if you can pay via money order. If so purchase a money order with cash and mail it to them. If they do not, you can use cash to purchase a pre-paid debit card from any Walmart, in addition to many other big box stores. You can probably also pay with bitcoin but you will need to make sure that the bitcoin itself was bought in a manner that can’t be traced (e.g. with cash), or was appropriately tumbled. If you’re unfamiliar with this process, ask a tech-literate friend to show you (be aware that this is somewhat tedious and requires lots of time waiting for bitcoin transactions to slowly process over tor).
Mable’s Bakery Mutual Aid found that there is a thriving culture online of bodybuilders who buy DIY steroids from gray or black market vendors. Several of these vendors also sell various forms of estrogen. You can read reviews of different vendors on various bodybuilder forums, and nearly all of these vendors accept cryptocurrency. While over-the-counter estrogen purchase is currently legal, testosterone is a Schedule III controlled substance and there may be legal risks associated with buying estrogen from vendors who also sell controlled substances. However you do it, purchase 100 grams of pure 17beta-estradiol, CAS number 50-28-2 and have it shipped to you using one of the secure shipping methods outlined. If you used a prepaid debit card make note of it in your spreadsheet.
Once your estradiol arrives you will need to test it assuming you bought it from a gray market supplier. This step is second because if the test doesn’t come back clean (e.g. they sold you a bunch of baking soda) you will need to repeat the previous step before proceeding further. Go to toxassociates.com. Order a comprehensive drug analysis, tell them you want a quantitative analysis of estradiol and a test for heavy metals. This is a step where multiple BnB branches can work together and save a lot of money. Assuming multiple chapters place an order of estradiol together only a single test will need to be performed for everyone. Thus, the costs for testing will be split between however many chapters go in on the order together. Pay for the test with a money order purchased with cash and await your results. You’re looking for the results to ideally say >99% estradiol and no heavy metals or anything else detected. Fairy Wings’ was 97%. We would love to know what the other 3% is but after extensive research it seems we’d need thousands of dollars and corporate/academic credentials to do so. If you live somewhere that has an anonymous harm reduction drug checking service, this can be a good option too. We found one that provided instant results via FTIR testing and a second round of results about a month later via GCMS.
Ordering Materials
Purchase 6 gallons of 95% alcohol. Cost: $650.
You can buy bulk alcohol online from vendors like laballey.com and organicalcohol.com. Depending on the vendor alcohol may be referred to as ethanol. Ethanol is the name for the kind of alcohol that you can drink. You could also use isopropyl alcohol and it would be much cheaper. We went with ethanol because we wanted to stick as close to the patent as possible. The patent does mention that you can use isopropyl alcohol however they imply that ethanol is the form that they preferred.
If you use laballey you should know they have pretty strong fraud protection measures and as a result they will automatically cancel any order that has a different shipping and billing address. To get around this you can have a friend buy alcohol from them legitimately, paying with their own card, shipping it to their legal name. You will need to have alcohol shipped to someone older than 21 and they must sign for the package when it arrives. You can also get around this step by buying everclear from liquor stores. This has the advantage of being much faster, and much more secure but is also much more expensive. Our rough calculations showed everclear to be about 3x as expensive.
Alcohol is extremely flammable and 6 gallons of it should be considered a major hazard. Do not open the container it came in until you’re ready to make a batch. In addition store the alcohol as far away as possible from any flames or anything that could produce a flame. When working with alcohol do not smoke or be anywhere near any flames.
Purchase 2 gallons of propylene glycol USP. Cost: $150
Propylene glycol is a very common chemical and can be found from a number of websites like laballey. See above for tips when it comes to ordering from laballey. Wherever you get it make sure that it’s just propylene glycol and not propylene glycol mixed with some other thing.
USP stands for United States Pharmacopoeia and refers to a standard of purity for chemicals. All chemicals should be sold to you as USP. If you have the money you should also send all of your reagents off for testing in addition to the estradiol.
Purchase 2 liters of diethylene glycol monoethyl ether USP. Cost: $200
Follow the steps for propylene glycol but with diethylene glycol monoethyl ether. Laballey is again a potential source for this. We were unable to find other vendors for diethylene glycol monoethyl ether so we had to use laballey.com.
Purchase a large wide mouth glass container for mixing. Cost: $30
Throughout the manufacturing process we use glass because it’s nonreactive. It’s possible other materials would be acceptable as well but we simply don’t know. If you find out – let us know!
We use a 1000ml beaker, a 200ml beaker, and a 5000ml glass container, but you could use any similarly sized glass containers. Get one of each.
You might be able to find a large enough glass container at a store somewhere. If you can absolutely try to buy it with cash. If not there are plenty of options on amazon.
Purchase scales. Cost: $75
One will need to be a higher capacity kitchen scale accurate down to .1g (1g is also okay,) and the other will be accurate down to 0.01g. Make sure that the higher capacity scale can handle the weight of the mixing jar, and water/alcohol. For our batch the scale should have a capacity of at least 15 pounds, preferably 20.
Purchase weigh boats. Cost: $16
Purchase bottles and tincture droppers. Cost: $600
There are several websites where you can buy bottles and droppers in bulk. Thebottlestore.com and containerandpackaging.com are two such options. Buy at least 350 4oz amber boston round bottles and an equal number of 1ml tincture droppers. Make sure that the bottles and droppers have matching neck sizes. In this case 24-400 is the neck finish we used.
Magnetic stirrer. Cost: $100
The magnetic stirrer for this recipe does not need a heating element. However, if you plan on making injectable hormones as well, a heating element will be worth the extra money.
Purchase misc. lab equipment. Cost: $100
For this step we’re mostly thinking about gloves, goggles, perhaps a table if needed, and any other small items. A couple small funnels were helpful for getting the final product into the vials.
We found a polypropylene graduated pitcher made for pouring the finished estradiol into the bottles much easier. NOTE: a normal pitcher will not work. We assume a glass pitcher might work, but have not used one ourselves.
Buy distilled water. Cost: $20
Buy 4 gallons of distilled water from any grocery store. It MUST be distilled water, not spring water or anything else.
Make a Batch
The basics of making girl juice are as follows: measure out all of the raw materials by mass, add them to a mixing container, mix vigorously, pour into a funnel and into a pitcher and then into bottles. The process is actually pretty straightforward, it just takes a while to bottle. You should clear your afternoon for this and plan on it taking about 4 hours. Keep in mind that this process will likely be messy and will involve alcohol spilling over your work environment. You should also pick a place where this won’t be an issue and clean up as you go. You should also not work by open windows where a passerby will see what you’re doing. It will look like you’re making drugs and will attract unwanted attention.
1. Prep your workspace.
Once you’re ready to get started clean your work surface with isopropyl alcohol and lay out all of the ingredients, your magnetic stirrer, a metal spoon or other metal stirring device, the 5000ml glass container, 2000ml glass container, and 1000ml glass container. Clean the stirrer and containers with isopropyl alcohol.
2. Put on PPE.
This means long sleeves, gloves, mask and goggles. If you have long hair put it up before beginning.
3. Add 1915 grams of ethanol to the 5 liter mixing container.
Place your 2 liter glass container on your scale and tare it. Pour the ethanol into the 5 liter container.
4. Add 11 grams of estradiol to the mixing container and stir.
Place a weigh boat on the scale and tare it. Then add the estradiol to the weight boat using a spoon. Break up any chunks with the spoon. If you add too much scoop some back into the container that the estradiol came in. Then pour the estradiol into the 5 liter mixing container. Some estradiol will remain in the boat. We will deal with that in a second.
5. Add 1724 grams of distilled water to the mixing container and stir.
Use the same 2 liter container you used for measuring out the ethanol and tare it on the scale. Measure out 1724 grams of water into the 5000ml container and pour all water into the 5000ml container. Use water to rinse any remaining estradiol out of the weight boat. We will deal with that in a second.
6. Add 684 grams of propylene glycol and continue to stir.
Use a 1000ml container to weight out the propylene glycol and then add it to the 5000ml container.
7. Add 228 grams of diethylene glycol monoethyl ether and stir.
Using a new clean glass container, follow the same procedure as for the propylene glycol. Allow the mixture to continue stirring until the DGME powder is fully dissolved – anywhere from 5-45 minutes, then stir for another 5 minutes to ensure uniformity.
8. Time to bottle!
Use a large clean funnel to transfer the contents of the mixing container into the polypropylene pitcher. Pour the finished estrogen directly from the pitcher into the amber bottles. Use a smaller funnel to minimize spillage. Leave a little room at the top so it doesn’t overflow when you add the dropper. After filling a bottle, clean it with an alcohol wipe and add a label once it’s dry. You should have between 50 and 60 bottles filled.
9. Clean up your workspace.
Once you are done making all of the girl juice you should clean up your work area. Tear off all of the labels of the packages you received and burn them. This is to prevent you from putting a bunch of incriminating evidence into the same dumpster. Once all of the labels have been disposed of you can dispose of the boxes as regular recycling. If you peel the labels off the chemicals you bought (propylene glycol and diethylene glycol monoethyl ether) you can also dispose of them as normal recycling. If not, dispose of each one in separate dumpsters.
Thoroughly wash all non-disposable lab equipment. Return all of your supplies to wherever you normally store them. You should have about 300 bottles filled. You very well might have less depending on whether or not you fully ran out of something or just stopped when you didn’t have enough for a full batch.
10. Print zines.
We used the zine that Fairy Wings Mutual Aid designed and made a couple edits. You can do this too, change out the contact info and any other relevant details, and print your own edition. Make sure to change the title of the zine to “Boobs Not Bombs – [Your chapter’s name] 1st edition” or something other than the title of this zine, so as to not confuse people. If you’d like an electronic copy of the zine for editing – send an email to fairywingsma@protonmail.com.
Giving the length of this zine printing will be very expensive. We recommend you find someone with a free/cheap printing hook up. As a suggestion look up the closest zine distro and ask them. If you don’t know any zine distros or this won’t work for whatever reason send us an email and we’ll try to help you out.
Transdermal Estrogen Quartersheet
Distribution
Print zines.
We based this zine off the zine that Fairy Wings Mutual Aid designed for transdermal estrogen and made a bunch of edits for the specific hormone you’re making. You can do this too, change out the contact info and any other relevant details, and print your own edition. Make sure to change the title of the zine to “[Your chapter’s name] 1st edition” or something other than the title of this zine, so as to not confuse people. An electronic copy of the Fairy Wings zine for editing can be found at https://tinyurl.com/boobsnotbombs. If you’d like an electronic copy of the Mable’s Bakery Mutual Aid DIY testosterone zine for editing send an email to mablesbakerymutualaid@proton.me.
Given the length of this zine printing will be very expensive. We recommend you find someone with a free/cheap printing hook up. As a suggestion look up the closest zine distro and ask them. If you don’t know any zine distros or this won’t work for whatever reason send us an email and we’ll try to help you out.
Create a distribution network.
Seek out places (especially public/easily accessible places) where you could leave a hormone drop-off/pick-up station. The station itself will consist of a number of bottles, an equal number of zines, and a donation jar. The specifics of what locations to pick are of course up to you. If you’d prefer a more clandestine arrangement you could also keep the bottles yourself and distribute them through word of mouth only. If you’re okay with a more public arrangement you could advertise online and mail the bottles out. If you’d like to go this route we recommend you contact hrtcafe.net and see if your small operation can be listed on the website.
Other places that can serve as distribution points are Really Really Free Markets, Food Not Bombs servings, art spaces, an anywhere frequented by people that would like estrogen and ordinarily would not have access to it. Of particular interest currently are places (such as Republican controlled states) that are making it increasingly difficult or impossible for minors to access hormones. If this isn’t feasible for you that’s okay too. The main criteria is that you pick a plan that you and your friends are excited about and go from there!
If you opt for a physical distribution plan make sure to periodically check the places that you all have left bottles to see when they need more. As a suggestion when you drop off more bottles you can also pick up any donations from the donation jar. Make sure to record any income in your finance spreadsheet, as always.
The initial goal for Fairy Wings was to spread out pretty far to try to get as many people interested as possible. In the long term their hope is that other projects will come online and they will be able to shrink their network because that’s just what makes the most logistical sense.
Distribute Bottles.
Once you know where to take the bottles/zines physically transport them to all of the various locations. You can mail them if you like however it will be quite expensive give that the package(s) will be rather heavy. If you ship any of the bottles make sure to add wrapping so they don’t shatter in transit.
If you’re distributing at physical locations you might need to setup a station with bottles, zines, and a donation jar. This might necessitate buying a folding table for each location or figuring out some other arrangement. For a donation jar we recommend making one by cutting an opening in an old coffee container lid and writing “$10 suggested donation” or “donations” in large visible letters on it.
Once you have run out of bottles and zines, collect a final round of donations, conduct any additional fundraising (if necessary) and then start all over.