The effects of ionic and nonionic micelles on the excited state proton transfer processes of 2-hydroxy 1-naphthaldehyde (HNL) have been reported in this Letter. Deprotonation of HNL is considerably retarded in neutral and anionic micelles than that in cationic type as evinced from the increased neutral emission. Increased anion emission of HNL in cationic micelle is more due to the abundance of hydroxyl ions in the environment as well as less nonradiative deactivation. Anion emission is found to decrease in anionic micelle due to less formation of the conformer along with increase in nonradiative decay. The nonradiative processes from neutral to ionic form and ionic to ground state are less affected in neutral micelle as compared to HNL in ionic micelles. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.