Candelilla Wax
INCI Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax. CAS 8006-44-8; EC 232-347-0, as CosIng gives them. Also: Euphorbia cerifera wax, Euphorbia antisyphilitica wax, INS 902, E 902.
Published values
| Saponification value | 43–65 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 54.0 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.0385 g/g |
| Iodine value | — |
| INS (SAP − IV) | — |
| Melting point | 68.5–72.5 °C |
| Unsaponifiable matter | — |
One soapmaking book prints 0.038 g NaOH per g, which agrees with ours to within 2 %.
A bar made of 100 % Candelilla Wax
The soap qualities are derived from the fatty-acid profile, which is below. They are shown here only for records the calculator can use.
How much lye
| Oil | NaOH | KOH |
|---|---|---|
| 500 g | 18.3 g(14.6–22.0) | 25.7 g(20.4–30.9) |
| 1 kg | 36.6 g(29.1–44.0) | 51.3 g(40.9–61.8) |
| 1 lb (454 g) | 16.6 g(13.2–20.0) | 23.3 g(18.5–28.0) |
| 2 lb (907 g) | 33.2 g(26.4–39.9) | 46.5 g(37.1–56.0) |
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
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| This is a true wax — esters of long-chain acids and alcohols rather than a triglyceride — so a fatty-acid profile in the soapmaking sense does not describe it. | |||
Where these numbers come from
PURITY section (Melting range, Acid value, Saponification value, Lead) and DEFINITION section; PDF text extracted with pdftotext. Year of specification: 2005.
Values are the JECFA purity specification limits for food-grade candelilla wax (revised at the 65th JECFA, 2005; published in FNP 52 Add 13): melting range 68.5-72.5 C, acid value 12-22 mg KOH/g, saponification value 43-65 mg KOH/g, lead <= 2 mg/kg. Candelilla is a hydrocarbon-rich wax (odd-numbered n-alkanes C29-C33 plus esters of even-numbered C28-C34 acids and alcohols, free acids, free alcohols, sterols and resins), so only a fraction of its mass saponifies; treat the SAP as an ester+acid value, not a triglyceride SAP. The monograph gives no iodine value, fatty-acid composition or unsaponifiable-matter limit, so those fields are null. INCI name is the customary CosIng entry but was not re-verified on CosIng in this session.
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.