Is it a universally agreed-upon “fresh” smell? Cultural? Or is lemon fragrance just cheap to manufacture and use in products? Something else?

I don’t hate it, but I also don’t care for it, either. Now I’m curious why so many cleaning products use that smell.

  • dmention7
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    3 days ago

    Limonene can either smell like pine or oranges depending on what way the molecule is mirrored.

    Damn, that’s interesting. My first thought on hearing that was wondering if pine scented cleaning products are a thing because it’s cheaper to synthesize limonene in both chiralities and then separate after the fact than it is to just synthesize the orange-smelling version.

    It doesn’t really hold up to much scrutiny, but it would be pretty damn cool if that fact explained both OP’s question, as well as explained pine-scented cleaning products!