In addition to their desired beneficial effects, personal care cleansers can result in detrimental effects to the skin, especially skin that is more prone to irritation such as baby′s skin or facial skin of adults. There are many ways in which a cleanser interacts with the stratum corneum, the surface skin layer, including removing essential skin components, such as lipids and NMF, as well as remaining in the skin after rinsing and disrupting the lipid order1. In this work, we demonstrate how self-assembly of polymers and surfactants are essential to deliver mild, aesthetically appealing cleanser formulations. Over the past 50 years, low mol. weight PEG polymers have been used com. to create these skin-compatible cleansers2. We also share our new approach using low mol. weight hydrophobically-modified polymers (HMPs) which self-assemble with surfactants, forming assemblies that deliver the next generation of personal care cleanser mildness. In this study we demonstrate a new approach to creating skin-compatible cleansers and from this gain new insight into how surfactant-based cleansers interact with the skin.