An experiment has been designed to measure the kinetics of solubilization of oils in a micellar solution. the results show a very large range of behaviors, but in one system the solubilization rate is determined completely by what is called the interfacial resistance, which quite likely arises out of the structural changes that micelles see. the model given here is successful in showing that this resistance is not the usual resistance due to diffusion and that it is quite prelevant in systems that are chemically similar but other conditions varying widely (Appendix). We conclude by showing that some of the existing theories of interfacial resistance are not reasonable, suggest how the real system may be more complex, and show that the interfacial conductance k* ∝ c m⁻¹ at large surfactant concentrations where c m is the concentration of micelles. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).