Milk Thistle Seed Oil
INCI Silybum Marianum Seed Oil. Also: Silybum marianum seed oil, Lady's thistle seed oil, Mary thistle seed oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 184–193 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 188.5 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1344 g/g |
| Iodine value | 119.3 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 69 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | 0.9–1.5 % |
A bar made of 100 % Milk Thistle Seed Oil
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.09–0.13 | 0.1 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 7.23–9.34 | 8.3 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.07–0.182 | 0.1 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 4.27–5.7 | 5.0 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 20.17–32.31 | 26.2 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 48.12–62.27 | 55.2 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 0.15–0.24 | 0.2 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 2.34–3.163 | 2.8 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | 0.82–0.86 | 0.8 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 1.74–2.12 | 1.9 |
| Lignoceric acid | C24:0 · saturated | 0.48–0.61 | 0.5 |
Where these numbers come from
Table 2, fatty acid profile of milk thistle seed oils of five varieties (n = 3).
PDF galley .../article/download/1835/2625 read from its page images; Table 1 (iodine value) and Table 2 (fatty acids), milk thistle column.
Remarks: saponification value 184-193, unsaponifiables 0.9-1.5 %, acid value 3.0-3.7, oil 27.9-33.7 %, linoleic 54.5-67.6 %; western Turkey, wild plants.
Table 2 read; not merged (see notes).
Table 3 summary values for milk thistle seed oil; cross-check in notes only.
Fatty acids: Kudlackova, Misak and Pluhackova 2025 (Plant Foods Hum. Nutr. 80:158), Table 2, seed oils of five Czech/Slovak cultivars, rel. %, Silma / Silyb / Mirel 1 / Mirel 2 / Moravia 55: myristic 0.10 / 0.09 / 0.09 / 0.13 / 0.11; myristoleic n.d. / n.d. / n.d. / 0.08 / 0.08; C15:0 0.04 / 0.04 / 0.04 / 0.03 / 0.03; C15:1 0.06 / 0.07 / 0.06 / 0.15 / 0.15; palmitic 9.06 / 9.34 / 9.32 / 8.23 / 7.23; palmitoleic 0.07 / 0.08 / 0.08 / 0.09 / 0.07; stearic 5.70 / 5.49 / 5.64 / 4.42 / 4.27; oleic 24.57 / 23.85 / 24.08 / 20.81 / 20.17; linoleic 53.53 / 54.25 / 54.05 / 60.21 / 62.27; alpha-linolenic 0.22 / 0.24 / 0.23 / 0.19 / 0.21; arachidic 3.10 / 3.00 / 2.99 / 2.52 / 2.34; cis-11-eicosenoic 0.84 / 0.85 / 0.82 / 0.86 / 0.85; behenic 2.12 / 2.10 / 2.03 / 1.80 / 1.74; lignoceric 0.59 / 0.61 / 0.56 / 0.48 / 0.48. Each cultivar's acids sum to 100; the table's SAFA/MUFA/PUFA summary rows are printed in a different cultivar order from the acid rows (the Silma column's sums match the Moravia 55 acids), so only the acid rows are used. C14:1, C15:0 and C15:1 have no key. The min/max also include Rokosik, Dwiecki and Siger 2020 (Grasas y Aceites 71:e368), Table 2, a cold-pressed oil from Polish seeds (Farmet expeller): C16:0 8.02, C16:1 0.182, C18:0 5.15, C18:1 n-9 32.31, C18:2 n-6 48.12, C18:3 n-3 0.15, C20:0 3.163 % (SFA 16.33, MUFA 32.49, PUFA 48.27; no C22:0 or C24:0 reported); its Table 1 gives IODINE VALUE 119.30 +/- 0.12 g/100 g (ISO method; stored as typical), acid value 2.15 mg KOH/g, peroxide value 1.17 meq O2/kg, refractive index (20 C) 1.4720, density (20 C) 0.916 g/ml. No typicals are set, because the cultivars differ (oleic 20-32 %, linoleic 48-62 %). SAPONIFICATION VALUE 184-193 mg KOH/g and unsaponifiable matter 0.9-1.5 % are from PlantFAdb dataset #11151 (a 1982 study of seed lipids of wild milk thistle from western Turkey in relation to sowing and harvest time; SOFA TAB_007685), whose remarks read 'Unverseifbares 0.9-1.5 %, Saeurezahl 3.0--3.7 %, Verseifungszahl 184-193' and which gives linoleic 54.5-67.6 %; the profile here implies about 191, inside that band. Read and not used: PlantFAdb #11011 (wild Egyptian seed, 1987) prints saponification value 154.0 and iodine value 128.52 beside 8.78 % myristic acid, which no other analysis finds, and a profile summing to 80 %; Maaloul et al. 2024 (PLoS One 19:e0304021, Table 2) report an oil from seeds collected in Tunisia (palmitic 13.09 +/- 4.46, stearic 5.30, oleic 16.98 +/- 10.96, linoleic 54.73 %) with very wide spreads, and a commercial oil ('Compagnie des Sens') at 13.51 % stearic and 37.37 % linoleic, outside every other analysis; Nevigato et al. 2025 (Methods Protoc. 8:137, Table 3) give only summary values for an Italian oil from cold-milled seed (linoleic 48.17, alpha-linolenic 0.29, SFA 17.21, MUFA 34.00 %), consistent with the Polish oil.
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.