Fragrance and dye

The two ingredients that sell the product and contribute nothing to cleaning.

Both are optional and neither is neutral

A customer judges a cleaner by how it smells and what color it is, before and after use, and that judgment is most of the repeat purchase.

Both are also formulation liabilities: fragrance is a solvent, dye is a stain risk, and both are allergen and disclosure questions.

Fragrance

Fragrance oil is an oil in a water-based product, so it needs a solubilizer or it will separate. This is a common cause of a cloudy or separating cleaner.

It is also a solvent, which means it attacks plastics: a fragranced product can craze a bottle that the unfragranced version did not.

Dose to the supplier's recommendation for the product type, and note that scent that seems right in a concentrated bottle reads differently diluted across a floor.

And be careful with essential oils specifically: several are strongly associated with antimicrobial properties, and naming one prominently can read as an implied claim.

Dye

Use dyes intended for cleaning products, at the lowest level that gives the color.

The failure is staining: a colored cleaner that marks grout, a worktop, a cloth or a hand is a product returned, and it is a complaint that arrives late.

Test on porous surfaces, on white cloth, and on skin, with a soak rather than a wipe.

Color also fades in light, which matters for a clear bottle on a shelf.

Uncolored is an entirely defensible position and removes two variables.

What they do to everything else

Fragrance load changes clarity, viscosity, plastic compatibility and sometimes preservative demand.

Dye can react with an oxidizer or with a pH shift, which produces a color change in the bottle that looks like spoilage.

Both are ingredients for disclosure purposes, which reaches the California requirement.

Which makes them the last thing added and the first thing to remove when a formula is misbehaving.

References