Optically induced effects such as thermal lensing, turbidity and the optical Kerr effect in liquids and reversed micellar solutions have been reported but not thoroughly compared, in terms of relative size and significance. Under the present experimental conditions, the largest effect is thermal lensing, which is about 86 and 43 times greater, on average, than the effect of turbidity, when polarized and non-polarized laser pulses are applied, respectively, in microseconds, to certain liquids. The smallest effect is electric birefringence which is about 14% that of turbidity in a 0.1 M aerosol-OT/CCl 4 solution. A typical experimental set-up to distinguish the above effects is presented.