Detergents are key ingredients in cosmetic, cleaning, and sanitizer formulations but solubilize hydrophobic matter with low selectivity. This leads to cell damage and side effects, like skin irritation, allergies or antimicrobial resistance. To align detergent chemistry with consumer health, we established ionic/non-ionic hybrid detergents with surprising advantages. Compared to established ionic detergents, like sodium dodecyl sulphate or dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide, related ionic/non-ionic hybrid detergents have low critical micelle concentration values, low cytotoxicity, excellent hard water tolerance and good solubilizing properties. Ionic/non-ionic hybrid detergents will enable the development of cleaning products that demand detergents with scalable cell compatibility, while doing the job of cleaning applications. Furthermore, in context with medical research, we designed non-ionic hybrid detergents to control the stabilization of functional membrane proteins and their interactions with membrane lipids in biochemical assays. Membrane proteins are vital molecular machines in cell membranes and targets for most approved drugs on the market. A detailed analysis of their function and drug binding in context with membrane lipids is crucial for drug discovery but exceptionally challenging. Standard detergents poorly replicate relevant membrane lipid compositions surrounding proteins and limit the transferability of drug binding on purified proteins into patients. To overcome this innovation hurdle, we designed hybrid detergents with scalable solubilization properties. The trick is to fuse headgroups of non-ionic detergents to precisely tune polarity and conical shape of hybrid detergents. Our chemical design led to first detergent micelles that gradually remove or retain protein-lipid interactions during purification from membranes. Surprisingly, our hybrid detergent technology enables new possibilities in membrane protein drug discovery and uncovered a new type of biomolecular interaction between proteins and glycolipids in cell walls of Gram-negative bacteria with relevance for antibiotic research. The chemistry of hybrid detergents delivers exciting avenues for the development of biocompatible consumer products and medical research.