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The steady-state fluorescence quenching method has been used to investigate how the size of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) micelles changes on increasing the volume of the hydrophobic micelle constituents, either by addition of hydrocarbons or by addition of sodium tetradecyl sulfate. It is found that the micelle size is controlled mainly by the surface charge density: on addition of hydrocarbon the micelle responds by growing until the number of ionic heads per surface area is about the same as in the original micelle. This is so both if the hydrocarbon is incorporated by solubilization and by the addition of a long-chain homologue. The data give no evidence that the normal SDS micelle is in a constrained state, in spite of the fact that its hydrophobic radius is longer than a C12 alkyl chain.

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