Neem Oil
INCI Azadirachta Indica Seed Oil. CAS 8002-65-1, 84696-25-3, as CosIng gives it. Also: Azadirachta indica seed oil, Neem seed oil, Margosa oil, Nimtree oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 175–205 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 190.0 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1354 g/g |
| Iodine value | 74.9–150 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 78 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | — |
Soapmaking books print about 0.138 g NaOH per g (median of 7 books), which agrees with ours to within 2 %.
A bar made of 100 % Neem 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 | 64.3 g(59.3–69.4) | 90.3 g(83.1–97.4) |
| 1 kg | 128.7 g(118.5–138.8) | 180.5 g(166.3–194.8) |
| 1 lb (454 g) | 58.4 g(53.8–63.0) | 81.9 g(75.4–88.3) |
| 2 lb (907 g) | 116.7 g(107.5–126.0) | 163.7 g(150.8–176.7) |
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 34 : 66
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 12–18.85 (typical 18.1) | 18.1 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 4.1–14.99 (typical 14.97) | 15.0 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 28–41.33 (typical 41.33) | 41.3 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 18.6–46 (typical 18.6) | 18.6 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 5.5 | 5.5 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 0.78 | 0.8 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 0.14–0.21 (typical 0.14) | 0.1 |
Recipes that use it
- Neem dog bar 10 % of the oils
Guides that discuss it
Where these numbers come from
Table 2 physicochemical properties (density, acid value, iodine value, saponification value, ester value, molecular weight, free fatty acids) per extraction solvent; Table 3 GC-MS fatty-acid composition per solvent. PDF fetched and text-extracted locally.
Table 1 physicochemical properties of a commercial neem oil (free fatty acids, acidity, peroxide value; calculated iodine and saponification values, not used); Table 2 fatty-acid composition; Table 4 literature fatty-acid values.
Public.Resource.Org copy on the Internet Archive (linked from law.resource.org). Table 1, neem kernel oil / depulped neem seed oil: saponification value 180 to 205 / 175 to 200; iodine value (Wijs) 65 to 80 for both, amended to 65 to 85; acid value max. 15 / 20; unsaponifiable matter max. 2 / 2 %; titre min. 36 / 36 C; refractive index at 40 C 1.4615 to 1.4705; moisture and insolubles max. 0.3 / 0.5 %. The field spans both columns.
PRIMARY source: Recycling 2023 (MDPI, open access; PDF fetched from MDPI's file server), Indian neem seed oil Soxhlet-extracted with four solvents, n = 3. Table 2 MEASURED values (titration / Wijs) for hexane (H), hexane-methanol 1:1 (HM), ethanol (Et) and hexane-ethanol 1:1 (HEt) extracts respectively: saponification value 159.68 / 194.60 / 184.78 / 186.35 (printed as 'g KOH/100 g', i.e. mg KOH/g), iodine value 74.9 / 131.92 / 75.00 / 150.00 g I2/100 g, acid value 6.73 / 7.93 / 6.24 / 8.48 mg KOH/g, density 0.87 / 0.80 / 0.92 / 0.83 g/cm3, ester value 152.95 / 186.67 / 178.54 / 177.87, free fatty acids 3.38 / 3.98 / 3.13 / 4.26 %. The IV min/max in this record are the spread of those four columns (the SAP field follows IS 4765, below); the hexane and ethanol oils, which the paper says match commercial neem oil (it cites a commercial iodine range of 65-80 g I2/100 g and a commercial saponification range of 175-205 mg KOH/g, and other studies at 167-195), gave IV 74.9-75.0 and SAP 159.68-184.78, while the two mixed-solvent extracts gave the high iodine values (co-extracted polar material). Table 3 fatty acids (GC-MS area %) H / HM / Et / HEt: palmitic 18.10 / 13.55 / 18.85 / 15.12, stearic 14.97 / 11.47 / 14.99 / 14.88, arachidic 0.78 / 1.87 / nd / 1.03, behenic 0.14 / 5.42 / 0.21 / nd, lignoceric nd / 4.74 / nd / nd, oleic 41.33 / 16.86 / 41.08 / 39.48, linoleic 18.60 / 5.04 / 20.22 / 12.41, others 6.08 / 27.31 / 3.93 / 13.34. The 'typical' fatty-acid values here are the hexane column; ranges use the hexane and ethanol columns plus the ADDITIONAL document, Lipidology 2025 (MDPI), Table 2, a commercial neem oil analysed at UNICAMP: palmitic 12, stearic 4.1, oleic 28, linoleic 46, linolenic 5.5 % (SFA 16, MUFA 28, PUFA 51), free fatty acids 2.0 %, acidity 3.9 mg KOH/g, peroxide 3.2 mEq/kg, triacylglycerols 98 %. That sample's low stearic / high linoleic content is atypical against the literature the same paper tabulates (Table 4: palmitic 15.6-18.7, stearic 16.7-21.3, oleic 41.9-49.9, linoleic 12.8-19.6, linolenic 0.3-0.5 %), so it is used only for the range end-points and for linolenic (not detected in the Recycling study). Lipidology 2025 also prints iodine value 116 +/- 12 g I2/100 g and saponification value 198 +/- 8 mg KOH/g, but both are explicitly CALCULATED from the fatty-acid composition (AOCS Cd 1c-85 / Cd 3a-94), so they are excluded from the SAP/IV fields. Unsaponifiable matter and melting point were not reported in either document (neem oil is typically semi-solid below about 20 C, but no allowed source printed a value). The INCI name is CosIng's exact, active entry for the record's Latin name, checked on 2026-09-22 with scripts/cosing-lookup.py. SAPONIFICATION VALUE now follows IS 4765:1975: 180-205 mg KOH/g for neem kernel oil and 175-200 for depulped neem seed oil; the field spans both. The Recycling 2023 solvent extracts (159.68-194.60) stay in these notes; the hexane extract's 159.68 is 17 % under its own fatty-acid profile. A 1998 Bangladeshi figure of 227.06 (PlantFAdb #10541) was read and not used: the same paper gives palm oil 233.58. The iodine field (74.9-150) includes two mixed-solvent extracts with co-extracted polar material; IS 4765's 65-85 describes the traded oil and is worth considering too.
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