The effect of temperature, washing time, mechanical agitation and concentration on the removal from cotton fabrics of tripalmitin labelled with Csup 14 were studied. In order to correlate the detergency with the removal mechanism, solubilization and suspending power of surfactants were observed. RESULTS : 1. The detergency from cotton fabric was increased with elevating temperature and over the temperature of maximum detergency, the rate of soil removal was rather decreased. 2. The effects of washing time and mechanical agitation on the removal of triplamitin were obvious at lower temperature. 3. The removal of tripalmitin was remarkably increased at higher concentration over cmc for all surfactants. The detergency of nonionic surfactant -NPPG- was best, this was resulted from its large solubilization and suspending power.