Brighten up! Adding surfactants to aqueous solutions of three different water‐soluble cruciforms (XF) improves their fluorescence quantum yields. Additionally, changes are observed in the emission wavelength of the XF around the critical micelle concentration (cmc) of the surfactant.

Three 1,4‐bis‐(aminostyryl)‐2,5‐bis(phenylethynyl) benzenes carrying four, six, or eight acetic acid units were investigated for their surfactochromicity. Anionic, cationic, and nonionic surfactants as well as a surfactant‐like protein (bovine serum albumin, BSA) were added to buffered solutions of the XFs in water, causing—in most cases—the fluorescence quantum yield to increase significantly and a blue‐ or red‐shifted emission to be observed. The addition of cationic (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, CTAB) and neutral (Brij 35, TWEEN 20 and Triton X‐100) surfactants to XFs causes a red shift in their emission at low or very low surfactant concentrations that we attribute to surfactant‐induced excimer formation. The fluorescence quantum yield is in most cases a monotonous function of surfactant concentration. For the investigated ionic surfactants, the fluorescence quantum yield of the XFs does not change much after the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of the surface is reached. However, in the case of non‐ionic surfactants, the fluorescence quantum yields of the XFs starts to increase after the CMC has been reached, suggesting that different effects are involved.