Camelina Oil
INCI Camelina Sativa Seed Oil. Also: Camelina sativa seed oil, False flax oil, Gold-of-pleasure oil, Leindotter oil, Wild flax oil, Dodder oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 187.8 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 187.8 mg KOH/g (typical) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1339 g/g |
| Iodine value | 104.7 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 83 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | — |
One soapmaking book prints 0.132 g NaOH per g, which agrees with ours to within 2 %.
A bar made of 100 % Camelina 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 | 63.6 g | 89.2 g |
| 1 kg | 127.2 g | 178.4 g |
| 1 lb (454 g) | 57.7 g | 80.9 g |
| 2 lb (907 g) | 115.4 g | 161.9 g |
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 11 : 89
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.04–0.06 (typical 0.05) | 0.1 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 5.35–6.43 (typical 6.43) | 6.4 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.09–0.11 (typical 0.1) | 0.1 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 2.48–2.76 (typical 2.57) | 2.6 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 13.4–17.4 (typical 17.4) | 17.4 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 13.5–16.9 (typical 16.9) | 16.9 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 34.9–39.7 (typical 35.2) | 35.2 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 1.18–1.43 (typical 1.24) | 1.2 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | 14.9–16.12 (typical 14.9) | 14.9 |
| Erucic acid | C22:1 | 1.62–3.18 (typical 1.62) | 1.6 |
Where these numbers come from
Table 2 physical and chemical characteristics (free fatty acid content, iodine value, saponification number, density at five temperatures, refractive index); Table 3 fatty acid content, 'this study' column plus Budin, Eidhin and Zubr comparison columns. Publisher's own PDF.
Table 4 fatty-acid composition of two Serbian cultivars by two extraction methods; Table 5 tocopherols (gamma-tocopherol 184-547 mg/kg). Its Table 1 'saponification number' column (28-59 mg KOH/g) is not usable and is not transcribed here.
Saponification value 187.8 +/- 0.1 mg KOH/g and iodine value 104.7 +/- 0.3 g I2/100 g are Table 2 of Abramovic & Abram, Food Technology and Biotechnology 43(1):63-70 (2005), measured by AOAC 920.160 and 920.185 on a single pressed oil from Camelina sativa grown near Prevalje, Slovenia, 2002 (same table: free fatty acids 2.35 %, density 0.9207 g/cm3 at 20 C, refractive index 1.4756 at 25 C). The 'typical' fatty acids are that paper's Table 3 'this study' column: palmitic 6.43, stearic 2.57, oleic 17.40, linoleic 16.90, alpha-linolenic 35.20, arachidic 1.24, gondoic (C20:1) 14.90, eicosadienoic (C20:2) 2.12, eicosatrienoic (C20:3) 1.61, erucic 1.62 - ten acids totalling 99.99 %. The printed table interleaves four source columns and the PDF extraction scrambles the rows, so the assignment was pinned against the paper's own stated totals (10.3 % saturated, 55.8 % polyunsaturated, 16.9 % linoleic, 35.2 % alpha-linolenic, 14.9 % gondoic, 1.6 % erucic); all six agree exactly. C20:2 and C20:3 have no key in this database, which is why the profile here sums to 96.4 % rather than 100 - the missing 3.7 % is those two acids, not an omission. Min/max additionally span Foods 13(22):3605 (2024) Table 4, two Serbian cultivars (NS Zlatka, NS Slatka) cold-pressed and hexane-extracted: C16:0 5.35-5.75, C18:0 2.48-2.76, C18:1 13.40-13.94, C18:2 15.83-16.72, C18:3n3 36.68-39.25, C20:0 1.18-1.43, C20:1 15.17-16.12, C22:1 2.91-3.18, C14:0 0.04-0.06, C16:1 0.09-0.11; and the five-cultivar ranges from Zubr quoted in the FTB text (alpha-linolenic 34.9-39.7, oleic 14.0-16.9, linoleic 13.5-16.5, gondoic 15.1-15.8, erucic 2.6-3.0). The Foods 2024 paper also prints a 'saponification number' of 28.06-58.90 mg KOH/g, which is impossible for a triglyceride oil and roughly a quarter of every other published figure, so it is disregarded; that paper measured no iodine value. WHAT MATTERS FOR SOAP: camelina is the odd one among the high-linolenic oils. At 35-40 % alpha-linolenic it should be as fragile as linseed, yet it is not - its Rancimat induction period sits between rapeseed and linseed, and the FTB authors attribute that to roughly 800-1500 mg/kg of natural tocopherols (mostly gamma) plus the unusual 15 % of gondoic acid (C20:1), a long monounsaturated chain that most seed oils do not carry at all. The measured iodine value, 104.7, is barely half perilla's and close to soybean's, because a third of the oil is monounsaturated C18:1/C20:1 rather than polyunsaturated. Expect a soft bar with better keeping than the linolenic figure alone would suggest, but still treat it as a minority oil. Erucic acid is present at 1.6-3.2 %, below the 5 % food limit and irrelevant for soap, but it is why the long-chain end of the profile drags the saponification value down. The published 187.8 agrees with the 188.8 implied by the recorded profile to within 0.5 %. Unsaponifiable matter and melting point were not measured in either paper (null). INCI name from CosIng.
A published figure for this oil was checked and rejected: see why.
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