Triethanolamine as an emulsifier

We made a moisturizer in chemistry class, and used triethanolamine as an emulsifier. From what I've been told, you need a polar head and a non-polar tail to have an emulsifier. Does the triethanolamine bond with a fatty acid to become an emulsifier?

In addition to the triethanolamine, we used coconut oil, kerosene, stearic acid and glycerol.

No, because triethanolamine has some non-polar and some polar characteristics. The nonpolar chain of the fatty acid associates with the methylene while the N and -OH associate with teh polar carboxyl groups and everyone is happy.  No covalent rearragements involved.