Animal fats

Emu Oil

Also: Dromaius novaehollandiae oil, Rendered emu fat.

The saponification value here is derived, not published. No primary document we could use gives one for Emu Oil, so it is calculated from this record's own fatty-acid composition: chain lengths fix the molar mass, which fixes how much hydroxide a gram of fat consumes. That gives 195.4 mg KOH/g, ±3 %.

That is stoichiometry on a measured composition rather than a guess, and it is about as well determined as a published figure: checked against the 35 Codex oils where both fields come from the same standard, the method's median error is 0.90 % and its 90th percentile 2.74 %, with no meaningful bias. The formula page shows the working. If you have a certificate of analysis for your lot, enter its measured value in the calculator and this estimate is set aside.

Published values

Saponification value	not published
Derived from composition	195.4 ± 3 % mg KOH/g
Used by the calculator	195.4 mg KOH/g (derived)
SAP for NaOH	0.1393 g/g
Iodine value	72.67 g I₂/100 g
INS (SAP − IV)	123
Melting point	—
Unsaponifiable matter	0.54 %

A bar made of 100 % Emu Oil

Hardness 35 29–54

Cleansing 0 below 12–22

Conditioning 60 44–69

Bubbly lather 0 below 14–46

Creamy lather 35 16–48

Conventional qualities summed from the fatty-acid groups; a single-oil bar is a reference point, not a recipe.

Fatty-acid profile

Fatty acid		Published range, %	Used
Palmitic acid	C16:0 · saturated	25.67	25.7
Palmitoleic acid	C16:1	4.08	4.1
Stearic acid	C18:0 · saturated	9.06	9.1
Oleic acid	C18:1	45.76	45.8
Linoleic acid	C18:2	14	14.0
α-Linolenic acid	C18:3 n-3	0.37	0.4
Behenic acid	C22:0 · saturated	0.05	0.1

Where these numbers come from

MDPI - Nutrients (open access via PubMed Central) — Chemical Characterization and In Vivo Toxicological Safety Evaluation of Emu Oil (Nutrients 2022, 14(11), 2238; DOI 10.3390/nu14112238) · read 2026-09-20

Table 1 (physicochemical properties: acid value, FFA, peroxide value, iodine value, unsaponified matter, refractive index) and Table 2 (fatty acid composition, % of total). Published 2022.

Source: Nutrients 14(11):2238 (2022), Table 1 (physicochemical) and Table 2 (fatty acids) for one emu oil sample obtained by supercritical CO2 extraction of emu fatty tissue from Guangdong Xinji Emu Industry Co. (Jiangmen, China); values are mean +/- SD of replicate analyses of that single sample, not a population range. Table 1: acid value 1.24 +/- 0.49 mg KOH/g, free fatty acids 0.80 %, peroxide value 1.50 meq/kg, iodine value 72.67 +/- 2.08 g/100 g, unsaponifiable matter 0.54 +/- 0.13 %, refractive index 1.46 (40 C). Table 2 (% of total FA): saturated 34.78; palmitic C16:0 25.67; C18:0 9.06 (the paper labels this row 'heptadecanoic acid (C18:0)' - C18:0 is stearic acid and is mapped as such); docosanoic C22:0 0.05; unsaturated 64.28; palmitoleic C16:1 4.08; heptadecenoic C17:1 0.06 (no key, not mapped); oleic C18:1 45.76; linoleic C18:2 14.00; linolenic C18:3 0.37. The paper does not report a saponification value, and the only other characterization found (Indian JLST 2013) is not openly accessible, so sapKohMgPerG is null - do not substitute a generic animal-fat value. INCI not verified (null).

This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.