Carbohydrate- and oligoethylene oxide-based surfactants behave quite differently despite the fact that they are both classes of nonionic surfactants. Intensive studies of a mixture at fixed molar ratio (1:1) of two very common sugar- and oligoethylene oxide-based surfactants, namely n-dodecyl-beta-D-maltoside (beta-C(12)G(2)) and n-dodecyl hexaethylene oxide (C12E6), revealed that most properties of the mixture are similar to those of the oligoethylene oxide-based surfactant. In the present work, this mixture is compared to respective "hybrid surfactants". Such hybrid surfactants are surfactants whose head group contains chemically linked carbohydrate and oligoethylene oxide units. In order to study the behaviour of this sort of compounds, we synthesised a new class of surfactants whose head group consists of one carbohydrate-like unit (myo-inositol) and three ethylene oxide units. New regiochemically defined ethoxylated inositol derivatives (referred to as C12I1E3 and C12E3I1 in the following) were synthesised and studied for their thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystalline properties as well as for their surface activities. The results are compared with those of the reference systems beta-C(12)G(2) and C12E6, and their 1:1 mixture, respectively, and are discussed in terms of structure-property relations. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All, rights reserved.