Black Cumin Seed Oil
INCI Nigella Sativa Seed Oil. CAS 90064-32-7; EC 290-094-1, as CosIng gives them. Also: Nigella sativa seed oil, Black seed oil, Kalonji oil, Habbatus sauda oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 185–205 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 195.0 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1390 g/g |
| Iodine value | 104.37–140 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 73 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | 1.2–1.6 % |
One soapmaking book prints 0.137 g NaOH per g, which agrees with ours to within 2 %.
A bar made of 100 % Black Cumin Seed Oil
Conventional qualities summed from the fatty-acid groups; a single-oil bar is a reference point, not a recipe.
How much lye
| Oil | NaOH | KOH |
|---|---|---|
| 500 g | 66.0 g(62.6–69.4) | 92.6 g(87.9–97.4) |
| 1 kg | 132.1 g(125.3–138.8) | 185.3 g(175.8–194.8) |
| 1 lb (454 g) | 59.9 g(56.8–63.0) | 84.0 g(79.7–88.3) |
| 2 lb (907 g) | 119.8 g(113.7–126.0) | 168.1 g(159.4–176.7) |
For this oil alone at 5 % superfat, with pure sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or pure potassium hydroxide (KOH); in brackets, across the published range of its saponification value. KOH is usually sold at 90 %: divide by 0.9. For a whole recipe, open the calculator.
Fatty-acid profile
Saturated : unsaturated 16 : 84
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.17–0.22 | 0.2 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 11.77–13.36 | 12.6 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.15–0.21 | 0.2 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 2.27–3.59 | 2.9 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 20.59–26.37 | 23.5 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 53.42–61.54 | 57.5 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 0.14–0.45 | 0.3 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 0.14–0.23 | 0.2 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | 0.14–0.43 | 0.3 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 0.03–0.16 | 0.1 |
Guides that discuss it
Where these numbers come from
Table 1 fatty-acid composition ranges across 13 commercial oils and oil yield; Table 4 acid value, peroxide value, conjugated dienes.
Table 2: saponification value, iodine value, free fatty acids, peroxide value, refractive index for cold-pressed and supercritical-CO2 oils.
Table 1 row 'Kalonji (black seed) oil': iodine value 120-140, saponification value 188-194, unsaponifiable 1.2-1.6 %, density 0.918-0.924 (review's reference [90]).
Table 4 control-sample fatty-acid composition (corroboration only); Table 3 acid and peroxide values.
Printing date 9 July 2026; created, checked and released 3 July 2026. Saponification value (Ph. Eur. 2.5.6) 185.0-205.0 mg KOH/g; refractive index (20 C) ca. 1.474; relative density (20 C) ca. 0.920; palmitic 8.0-14.0, stearic max. 4.0, oleic 18.0-30.0, linoleic 50.0-65.0, linolenic max. 1.0, eicosadienoic 2.0-3.5 %. The Egyptian-seed grade (Sp322060d, same date) prints the same limits. Read with pdftotext -table.
Three commercial oils: saponification value 197.0, 197.0, 198.0; iodine value 113.0, 114.0, 120.0; linoleic 55.4-56.9, oleic 22.4-23.0, palmitic 12.4-13.8, stearic 2.8-3.1, eicosadienoic 2.4-2.7 %. Corroboration; inside the Heess band.
Fatty-acid ranges are from the PRIMARY paper (Molecules 2024), Table 1: 13 commercial Nigella sativa seed oils (India 6, Syria 3, Egypt 2, Poland 2), min-max across samples; that table also gives eicosadienoic acid C20:2 at 1.83-2.54 %, which is characteristic of this oil but is not a key in this database. That paper did not measure saponification or iodine value. The iodine value field spans two other documents that disagree (as the saponification field did until the correction below): (a) Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2016, Table 2, MEASURED saponification value 238.26 +/- 0.67 mg KOH/g (cold press) and 243.52 +/- 0.3 (supercritical CO2), iodine value 104.37 +/- 0.43 g I2/100 g (cold press) and 115.1 +/- 0.24 (SFE), refractive index 1.47, free fatty acids about 6 %; (b) the Frontiers in Nutrition 2026 systematic review, Table 1 row 'Kalonji (black seed) oil' (its reference [90]): saponification 188-194, iodine 120-140, unsaponifiable 1.2-1.6 %, density 0.918-0.924. The 2016 SAP values (238-244) are well above the review range and above what the fatty-acid profile would suggest; the iodine min/max are simply the span of what the two documents print, and the unsaponifiable range is from the review only. Corroborating single-sample fatty-acid data seen in Food Science & Nutrition 2024 (PMC11077178, control cold-pressed oil, Table 4): palmitic 13.20, stearic 2.54, oleic 23.68, linoleic 56.22, linolenic 0.42, C20:2 2.55 %. Melting point not given (liquid oil). INCI name from CosIng. SAPONIFICATION VALUE is now the Heess cold-pressed specification, 185.0-205.0 mg KOH/g, corroborated by three measured commercial oils at 197.0-198.0 (SOFA via PlantFAdb) and by the review's 188-194; the composition gives about 193 as a pure triglyceride. READ AND NOT USED for the saponification value: Mohammed et al. 2016 (238.26 cold-pressed, 243.52 SFE) and Cheikh-Rouhou et al. 2007 (211, 217). An oil that is 55-60 % linoleic acid cannot take more than about 200 mg KOH/g even as pure free fatty acid, so those titrations are wrong, whatever the cause.
This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL), which you can download as CSV or JSON. Found an error or a better primary source? Corrections with a link to the document are welcome at support@soapformulator.com.