You can use either anionic or cationic surfactant with non-ionic surfactant but you can't ever use both together, aggregation can occur due the oppositely charged head groups.

Molecular Interactions can be investigated with conductometry and surface tension measurements and by determining the surfactant NMR self-diffusion coefficients.

I will be addressing this question from a slightly different perspective and that is biocompatibility, toxicity and irritation.

The word ''topical'' is rather broad. If you are looking at developing a formulation that will be applied to the skin, then using any of those is not an issue (bear in mind that points raised above about potential electrostatic interaction between anions and cations are a stability concern). There are products already in the market for topical applicatiopn to skin that are based on all three, but not in combination(cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is cationic, sodium lauryl sulphate is anionic and many Tweens and Spans are non ionic; all three are applied topically to the SKIN with no concerns).

On the other hand if by ''topical'' you mean for instance topical ocular application then that is a completely differnt story where cationic and anionic surftactants are more likley to cause irritation than a non ionic. Think of what happens when a conventional sahmpoo or soap (contains sodium lauryl sulphate) comes in contact with eye! Compare and contrast that with baby shampoo whihc contains mainly non ionic surftactnts.

Either way the concentration of the surftactnat used is directllyty related t its toxixity potential.