We studied the reversibility of coadsorption from mixtures of the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate with either hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) or hydrophobically modified hydroxyethyl cellulose (hmHEC) using optical reflectometry. The coadsorption to nonselective hydrophobic poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) surfaces was compared with coadsorption to negatively charged silica surfaces that were selective for polymer adsorption. The surface selectivity determines the reversibility of coadsorption with respect to changes in the solution sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) concentration. On the selective silica surface, an adsorbed layer becomes kinetically trapped in path-dependent states because SDS is electrostatically repelled from the negatively charged surface and is therefore unable to solubilize the polymer/surface contacts. On the nonselective PDMS surface, coadsorption in the HPC/SDS system is reversible, and although some irreversibility persists in the hmHEC/SDS system, the severity of the kinetic trapping effect is greatly reduced compared with that of the same system on silica. The decreased kinetic trapping effects are attributed to surfactant adsorption to the hydrophobic PDMS surface. Finally, a streaming current technique was used to measure the electrokinetic thickness of kinetically trapped polymer layers that were formed on silica by coadsorption with SDS, followed by rinsing with SDS-free polymer solution. The layer thickness was history-dependent: despite prolonged exposure to a constant concentration polymer solution, the adsorbed layer thickness depended on the SDS concentration that existed during the initial coadsorption stage.