u/Revolutionary_Ad9093

I'm pretty new to 3D printing but I would like to be able to smooth my PLA prints, and have been trying to research options for chemical smoothing. What I am finding are wildly different opinions on what works, and I can't wrap my head around this. I've found people saying acetone sort of works, that ethyl acetate works, and that methyl ethyl ketone really works, and I've seen people stating emphatically that none of those do anything.

How is it possible that there's no consensus on how a chemical reaction works? This seems like there should be no room for dispute: a given chemical can dissolve PLA or it can't. What is going on?