There has been a recent revival of interest in preparation of surfactants from natural starting materials as they are more biodegradable and thus more environmentally friendly than traditional surfactants. We have begun a research project aimed at using a grain residue from brewing, containing the amino acids glycine, proline and glutamine as a source of polar components for surfactant synthesis. Little has been done to characterise these surfactants so far so we are studying these materials both as pure surfactants and importantly as mixtures, with the goal of avoiding costly separation steps both before synthesis and before use. Here we wish to begin these studies by studying the micelles formed for C12, C14 and C16 chain surfactants with these amino acid headgroups alone and in binary mixtures and the effects of pH and Ca2+ ions to determine micelle shape & structure in these systems.