DIY Estrogel Guide

This guide will instruct you on the materials and tools needed for home DIY basic estrogel compounding. There are easier methods out there, such as mixing estradiol into pre-made hand sanitizers, but this is for those who would prefer to compound their own gels, or manufacture at a scale where buying hand sanitizer is cost prohibitive. There are also some concerns about hand sanitizer formulations containing denaturing agents or other additives that might be bad for transdermal drug delivery. If you are interested in more experimental gel formulations or ones based on hand sanitizer, you can check out reddit.com/r/estrogel/wiki, which is where I got most of this information.

With this guide, you can produce supersaturated estrogels that are suitable for high-dose estradiol monotherapy. This is a great alternative to injections for the needle-shy or paranoid.

This recipe is based off of a patent that includes a generic estrogel recipe, available here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070154533A1/en - page 39 of the PDF has the recipe. This recipe has been adjusted for higher concentrations and higher absorption, using 60% ethanol, which is known to have the best absorption for estradiol. (https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addr.2012.09.032)

Sourcing Estradiol

The sources for estradiol are much the same as DIY injections, so I won't go into detail here. Look on made-in-china.com and search for 17b-estradiol, or more specifically, CAS number 50-28-2. For a single person, assuming they are doing monotherapy at 1-2mg a day, a typical yearly consumption is half a gram. This means 50 grams is enough to last you 100 years. I got 100 grams for $200 shipped from Hubei Vanz. You want 17 beta estradiol, not estradiol valerate, cypionate, enanthate, etc.

Other ingredients

Other ingredients, including the quantity and price I got them before, are listed below.

Carbomer/Carbopol 980 x 120g - $25 - amazon, ebay, cosmetic supply, aliexpress
Triethanolamine x 250ml - $20 - amazon, ebay, cosmetic supply
Distilled Water - $2-3 from your local grocery store
95% (190 proof) grain alcohol, such as everclear - 750 ml - $20 - liquor store (any alcohol over 60%/120 proof is okay)

Tools

Coffee frother wand - $5-10 on ebay, aliexpress, amazon. The longer and narrower the better.
Airless pump dispenser bottles - I have used this style(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51D0UnNSu+L._SL1500_.jpg) in the past because one pump = 225mg which is roughly equivalent to .5mg of estradiol (at .24% concentration). This works out well for me because it means two pumps a day is enough for monotherapy. It also means 1 80 ml bottle (80 ml is just under the 3 oz limit on airplanes) is enough to last me roughly a month. These might not be the easiest pumps to work with though, but more on that later.
100ml syringes with cap (like these https://www.amazon.com/100ml-Syringe-s-Caps-Industrial-Scientific/dp/B086H7TC1T) - also might not be necessary, more on that later
milligram scale such as the gemini-20 - $20-30
mixing container of some kind, such as a mason jar, glass cup, beaker, etc.
optional - metal stirrers and weighing spatulas such as these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HHWCNB9/ - $10

Total: I spent about $350 to get started, but you can get everything much cheaper if you are willing to shop around and buy small quantities. The amount of carbomer, estradiol, triethanolamine, etc. per bottle is very little, so even small amounts will last you a long time. If you spent what I did, raw materials alone (not counting tools) and the pump bottle is about $5-10 per bottle. The most expensive components for me are ethanol and airless pumps. Buying airless pumps in bulk from alibaba or made-in-china sellers can get prices down lower, I know some also try using 99% isopropyl alcohol instead of ethanol, though I haven't tried this. One 80ml bottle will last you about a month at .5mg a day @ .24% concentration.

Preparation of gel

Gel preparation is quite simple, first you need to find out how much alcohol and water you need. You are trying to reach a concentration of 60/40 ethanol to water. You can easily find out how much water you need to reach an overall concentration of 60%(by volume). You can easily find online calculators for this, such as here: https://ezcalc.me/alcohol-dilution-calculator/. Assuming you want to make 100ml of gel, for example, and have 95%(190 proof) grain alcohol, you'll need ~63ml of 95% ethanol and 37ml of distilled water. From here on out I will assume you want 100ml of gel and have 95% ethanol.

Recipe

63ml ethanol
37ml distilled water
1g Carbomer 980
1.35g Triethanolamine
Estradiol to your desired concentration, I usually do .24%(by weight of the entire solution, accounting for the density of 95% ethanol at ~.8g/ml), which comes to ~215mg.

Procedure

Pour the ethanol into a mixing container, such as a beaker or jar.
Weigh your estradiol on a weighing paper, weighing boat, or a piece of tinfoil with your weighing spatulas, or another instrument.
Dissolve your estradiol into your ethanol and stir with a stirring instrument or coffee frother. Your solution should be clear, without any undissolved material.
Add water and stir.
Add Carbomer 980, and mix with coffee frother. This can take a long time to dissolve completely. I usually stir it with the coffee frother until most of it dissolves, then I let the solution sit while covered for 20 minutes. Then, I come back and stir it again until there are no clumps or undissolved powder.
Remove plunger from 100ml syringe. Twist on luer lock cap.
Transfer gel solution into your 100ml syringe, from the plunger side.
Add triethanolamine to your solution, stirring with your coffee frother. The solution will now go from liquid to a thicker gel, much like hand sanitizer. Stir extremely thoroughly and try to distribute the triethanolamine throughout the entire solution.
Insert plunger into back of syringe and remove the luer lock cap.
Use syringe to dispense gel into your airless pump of choice. You may want to stop a few times to let the gel settle to avoid huge air bubbles. You can tap the bottom of the airless pump against a hard surface to make the gel settle.

Potential improvements and challenges

The hardest part of this procedure is working with the gel after triethanolamine has been added, as it almost immediately becomes very thick, clumpy, sticky, etc. You do not want to add triethanolamine to the gel before it is either in its final container, or in a syringe. If you add triethanolamine in the mixing container, it will be extremely difficult to transfer. If you get airless pumps of this style: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832632413742.html you may be able to add the triethanolamine to the solution after it's already in the pump, however the mouth needs to be wide enough to fit your coffee frother. You need to be able to thoroughly mix the triethanolamine so that it can neutralize the pH of the carbomer 980. I haven't tried these bottles, but I have some other candidates on order and will update if I find a better bottle.

One possible area of improvement is adding a penetration enhancer, such as oleic acid, d-limonene, or isopropyl myristate. I personally experimented with 2% isopropyl myristate but found it incredibly irritating to my skin, and made the gel burn really badly. It also fell out of solution in my pump bottle. Personally, I just apply the gel scrotally, which results in extremely high absorption, so I feel no need to use penetration enhancers.

Usage/my results

With the bottles I recommend, each pump will dispense about 225mg of gel, or .5mg per pump. I used 4 pumps a day at first, putting 1 pump on my scrotum, and 1 on my thigh, morning and night, and after a month of this, I had the following blood test results:
Testosterone: 29 ng/dL
Estradiol: 326 pg/mL

I am currently lowering my dose to 2 pumps a day, on the scrotum only, to see if 1mg scrotally is enough for monotherapy. I will report back once I have blood test results. Although conventional wisdom with transdermal delivery says that transdermal gels have a depot effect, scrotal application has not been studied much and it could be the case that absorption is much quicker, so to be safe I apply twice a day rather than using 2 pumps once a day, and I also get my blood tests done at trough (before I do my morning dose).

This is a promising alternative to injections, and because it's alcohol based, the risk of contamination is low, even without a clean room or heat sterilization. This is also a great alternative for those who are needle-phobic or are for some reason not wanting to do injections.

[contact info removed at request of the author]

Discussion: https://groups.io/g/MTFHRT/topic/wiki_article_about_estrogel/93220481