A proton NMR titration study is presented where in small increments quantities of water were added to "dry" CmEn nonionic surfactant. For a particular range of compositions, two resonances for the water/hydroxyl protons were observed that display large chemical shift increases as water content is increased indicating that water must partition between two chemical environments with a surprisingly slow chemical exchange rate. A detailed mechanism of how the increasing amounts of water are incorporated into the surfactant medium is presented accounting for all observed spectral changes. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.