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Boundary lubrication is a fundamental phenomenon in textile processing. While the study on the boundary can provide a unique insight of the chemical interactions between lubricants, finishes, and fibers, boundary lubrication has not received as much attention by the scientific community as hydrodynamic lubrication. The disparity in the scientific efforts to develop a comprehensive understanding of lubrication phenomena can be explained in part by experimental limitations when the characteristic dimensions of the phenomena become submicron. The work reported in this dissertation introduces lateral force microscopy as a feasible tool to probe boundary lubrication phenomena at the nanoscale and establishes correlations between this new technique and more established macroscopic analytical methods. The findings and research contributions of this work are expected to provide a systematic guide to design intelligent and efficient textile finishes and lubricants. We studied boundary lubrication on model surfaces of common textile materials such as polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), and cellulose. Thin films of these polymeric materials were made using the spin-coating method. The friction coefficien