Laurel Berry Oil
INCI Laurus Nobilis Fruit Oil. CAS 8007-48-5, as CosIng gives it. Also: Sweet bay oil, Bay laurel fruit oil, Laurel fruit oil, Ghar oil, Defne yağı, Laurus nobilis fruit oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 198–199 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 198.5 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1415 g/g |
| Iodine value | 68–80 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 125 |
| Melting point | 36 °C |
| Unsaponifiable matter | 1 % |
A bar made of 100 % Laurel Berry 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 | 67.2 g(67.0–67.4) | 94.3 g(94.1–94.5) |
| 1 kg | 134.4 g(134.1–134.8) | 188.6 g(188.1–189.1) |
| 1 lb (454 g) | 61.0 g(60.8–61.1) | 85.5 g(85.3–85.8) |
| 2 lb (907 g) | 122.0 g(121.6–122.3) | 171.1 g(170.6–171.5) |
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 39 : 61
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capric acid | C10:0 · saturated | 1.3 | 1.3 |
| Lauric acid | C12:0 · saturated | 12.74–31.19 (typical 19.35) | 19.4 |
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.8–1 | 0.9 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 12.35–19.91 (typical 17.19) | 17.2 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.2–0.3 | 0.3 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 0.8–1.5 | 1.2 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 22.1–44.43 (typical 37.08) | 37.1 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 15.93–26.75 (typical 23.09) | 23.1 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 1.1–1.2 | 1.2 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
Recipes that use it
- Aleppo-style laurel and olive bar 25 % of the oils
- Aleppo-style soap, 20 % laurel 20 % of the oils
Guides that discuss it
Where these numbers come from
Open access; full text read. Soxhlet extracts of the dried, ground berries of 48 L. nobilis genotypes from Hatay, Turkey, fatty acids by GC/MS after methylation. Table 2 gives lauric, palmitic, oleic and linoleic acid for each genotype, with min, max and mean: lauric 12.74 / 31.19 / 19.35, palmitic 12.35 / 19.91 / 17.19, oleic 30.35 / 44.43 / 37.08, linoleic 15.93 / 26.75 / 23.09 %. The text states that lauric acid is found only in the kernel and that Turkish Standard TS 5205 bars laurel oil with less than 12.5 % lauric acid from export. No saponification or iodine value.
Open access under CC BY 3.0. Fixed-oil yield 15.0 % by weight at 250 bar and 40 C. Table 2 gives the fatty-acid composition of the fixed oil as percentages: C12:0 27.7, C14:0 1.0, C16:0 17.1, C16:1 n-7 0.3, C18:0 1.5, C18:1 n-9 27.2, C18:2 n-6 21.5, C18:3 n-3 1.2, others 2.5 (C10:0, C20:0, C20:1). The paper reports no saponification or iodine value.
Full text read from the University of Madeira's repository copy (the publisher's page is paywalled). The Madeira oil is pressed from Laurus novocanariensis (p. 863), not L. nobilis. Table 2 (p. 865) gives three Madeira oils (lauric 18.6, 16.4, 14.0 %) and, for comparison, a fixed oil freshly prepared from L. nobilis fruit collected in Alenquer, Portugal: capric 1.3, lauric 30.0, myristic 0.8, palmitic 14.7, palmitoleic 0.2, stearic 0.8, oleic 22.1, C18:1 trans 1.0, linoleic 25.6, linolenic 1.1, eicosenoic 0.5 (total 98.1 %). Only the L. nobilis column is used. Bay (L. nobilis) fat has about a 3 % volatile fraction against more than 10 % in the Madeira oil (p. 866), whose 3.4 % costunolide and 1.7 % dehydrocostuslactone are also Madeiran figures. The paper quotes Hafizoglu and Reunanen (1993) for Turkish laurel berry fat at 54.2 % lauric, 15.1 % oleic and 17.2 % linoleic acid, and Garnier et al. (1961) for bay fat at 48.1 % lauric acid.
Read from the page images of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh's copy. Laurel oil is described as the fat of the berries of Laurus nobilis. The table on p. 416 gives saponification values of 198.9 (Allen), 197.5 (Fabris and Settimj), 197.5 (De Negri and Fabris), 197.7-198.1 (Lewkowitsch), 197-210 (Morpurgo) and 200.9 (Matthes and Sander) mg KOH/g, and iodine values of 67.8, 96.4, 80.4-80.5, 75-78.4, 66-78 and 82.3; melting point 32-36 C. P. 415: Matthes and Sander deducted 1 per cent of unsaponifiable matter; crude oils carry varying amounts of volatile oil, and Fabris and Settimj separated one with alcohol at 0 C into a fat (saponification value 206.5, iodine value 65.6) and a dark, strongly scented oil (186.6, 124.1).
The source of the saponification value (198–199) and iodine value (68–80), which it prints as characteristics of laurel oil from Laurus nobilis, along with a density of approximately 0.88, a melting point of approximately 36 C and a refractive index nD25 of 1.4783. A patent is a dated, published, citable document but it is not a compositional standard, and it gives no method for either determination. The patent's separate figure of about 40 C is for laurel tallow, a different preparation, and is not used here.
This is the oil of the bay laurel's fruit, the fat that makes Aleppo soap. It is not bay laurel ESSENTIAL oil (a steam distillate of the leaves, which saponifies nothing) and not West Indian bay, Pimenta racemosa, which is a different plant sold under the same English word. SPECIES. Every figure here is for Laurus nobilis. Madeira's laurel oil comes from a different tree, L. novocanariensis, as Castilho et al. (2005) state in their introduction, and it is a different oil: their three producers' oils held 14.0-18.6 % lauric acid against 30.0 % in the L. nobilis fruit oil they prepared for comparison, and gave more than 10 % volatile oil on distillation against about 3 % in bay fat. The record used to take the Madeira figures (18 % lauric acid, 10 % volatiles, 5 % sesquiterpene lactones) for L. nobilis; they are no longer used. FATTY ACIDS span three analyses of L. nobilis fruit oil. Ayanoğlu, Kaya and Koçer (2018) extracted the whole berries of 48 genotypes from Hatay, Turkey: lauric 12.74-31.19 (mean 19.35), palmitic 12.35-19.91 (17.19), oleic 30.35-44.43 (37.08) and linoleic 15.93-26.75 % (23.09); those four means are the typical values. Castilho et al. (2005, Table 2, fruit from Alenquer, Portugal): capric 1.3, lauric 30.0, myristic 0.8, palmitic 14.7, palmitoleic 0.2, stearic 0.8, oleic 22.1, trans-C18:1 1.0 (not recorded here, left out), linoleic 25.6, linolenic 1.1, eicosenoic 0.5 %. Marzouki et al. (2008, Table 2, supercritical CO2, Tunisian berries): lauric 27.7, myristic 1.0, palmitic 17.1, palmitoleic 0.3, stearic 1.5, oleic 27.2, linoleic 21.5, linolenic 1.2 %, plus 2.5 % grouped as C10:0 + C20:0 + C20:1, left unsplit because the paper does not split it. Capric and eicosenoic acids are Castilho's alone and are given as typical values. Ayanoğlu et al. note that lauric acid is found only in the kernel, and that Turkish Standard TS 5205 bars laurel oil with less than 12.5 % lauric acid from export. Castilho et al. quote an older Turkish analysis at 54.2 % lauric acid (Hafizoglu and Reunanen 1993), which was not read here. SAPONIFICATION AND IODINE VALUES are from US 4,235,889, which prints 198-199 and 68-80 as characteristics of laurel oil from Laurus nobilis; no compositional standard covers this oil. Lewkowitsch (1909, vol. 2, p. 416) tabulates the older determinations: saponification value 198.9 (Allen), 197.5 (Fabris and Settimj), 197.5 (De Negri and Fabris), 197.7-198.1 (Lewkowitsch), 197-210 (Morpurgo) and 200.9 (Matthes and Sander), so the patent's figures sit among six earlier ones. The typical profile implies about 209, 5 % above the measured value. Most of that gap is the part of the oil that is not triglyceride: bay fat carries about 3 % volatile oil (Castilho et al.), and Matthes and Sander deducted 1 % unsaponifiable matter (Lewkowitsch, p. 415). Fabris and Settimj split a crude oil with cold alcohol into a fat saponifying at 206.5 and a dark, strongly scented oil at 186.6 (p. 415). A measured saponification value already allows for that fraction, so the lye figure can be used as it stands, and the few per cent that is not fat stays in the bar unchanged. An oil at the high-lauric end of the band probably saponifies higher than this figure, which errs towards extra superfat. REGULATION. The EU and UK cosmetics regulations prohibit 'oil from the seeds of Laurus nobilis L.' (Annex II, entry 359; CAS 84603-73-6, EC 283-272-5). Soap uses the oil of the whole fruit, which CosIng lists separately as Laurus Nobilis Fruit Oil, the name used here. Health Canada's Hotlist prohibits the seed oil under CAS 8007-48-5, the number CosIng gives the fruit oil. Which of the two a given oil is, and whether a listing reaches it, is a question for the supplier's specification and a safety assessor. Traditional Aleppo recipes put laurel berry oil at 2-40 % of the fat, added to an olive-oil soap after the boil.
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