In this article, we consider the effects of sodium salicylate on the microstructure evolution and rheological responses of an aqueous cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) solution. The experimental runs covered CTAB solutions ranging from dilute to semidilute, which were far above its critical micelle concentration. Sodium salicylate (NaSal) was used as a structure-forming agent with the molar ratio of NaSal to CTAB ranging from 0.1 to 10.0. The experimental results showed that the rheological responses of the surfactant solution were influenced strongly by both the CTAB concentration and the molar ratio. At low molar ratios, below 0.3, the surfactant solutions behaved like a Newtonian fluid. However, as the molar ratio increased, the deviation from Newtonian behavior became pronounced. Specifically, for 0.05 M CTAB solutions with molar ratios ranging from 1.0 to 5.0, an apparent yield stress developed at low shear rates and a stress plateau was displayed at intermediate shear rates. When the shear rate exceeded a certain threshold value, the shear stress increased, again passing over the plateau value. In addition, viscoelastic response and relaxation behavior were observed. The relaxation behavior after the cessation of flow was strongly dependent on the molar ratio, which was also confirmed by rheo-optical observations. The optical anisotropy measured by rheo-optical methods was closely related to flow-induced stretching and alignment of the wormy micelles and was consistent with the rheological responses. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.