Contact of fabric surfaces with human skin inevitably results in transfer of human sebum, which cannot be easily removed by washing the fabrics in water with conventional detergents (1). Sebum, the sebaceous secretion of the skin, consists of a complex mixture of triglycerides, squalene, cholesterol and other sterols, free fatty acids and aliphatic hydrocarbons (2) and is the major oily soil constituent in home laundry. Although many studies on the removal of sebum soil from different substrates have been reported, few address the thermodynamics of sebum soil removal from fiber substrates into aqueous surfactant solutions. The mechanism for removal of oily soil by a substratewater-micelle system can be considered a two-step process involving the transfer of soil from substrate to water (non-micellar phase) and then from water into micelles. Thus, the free energy change of soil determines whether a detergent process will be successful in removing the 167 JOS