To study the influence of the chemical nature of headgroups and the type of counterion on the process of micellization in mixed surfactant systems, the cmc's of several binary mixtures of surfactants with the same length of hydrocarbon tail but with different headgroups have been determined as a function of the monomer composition using surface tension measurements. Based on these results, the interaction parameter between the surfactant species in mixed micelles has been determined using the pseudophase separation model. Experiments were carried out with (a) the nonionic/anionic C(12)E(6)/SDS ((hexa(ethyleneglycol) mono-n-dodecyl ether)/(sodium dodecyl sulfate)), (b) amphoteric/anionic DDAO/SDS ((dodecyldimethylamine oxide)/(sodium dodecyl sulfate)), and (c) amphoteric/nonionic C(12)E(6)/DDAO mixed surfactant systems. In the case of the mixed surfactant systems containing DDAO, experiments were carried out at pH 2 and pH 8 where the surfactant was in the cationic and nonionic form, respectively. It was shown that the mixtures of the nonionic surfactants with different kinds of headgroups exhibit almost ideal behavior, whereas for the nonionic/ionic surfactant mixtures, significant deviations from ideal behavior (attractive interactions) have been found, suggesting binding between the head groups. Molecular orbital calculations confirmed the existence of the strong specific interaction between (1) SDS and nonionic and cationic forms of DDAO and between (2) C(12)E(6) and the cationic form of DDAO. In the case for the C(12)E(6)/SDS system, an alternative mechanism for the stabilization of mixed micelles was suggested, which involved the lowering in the free energy of the hydration layer. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.