Awesome info.
Yeah, I knew that mineral oil was almost the same as paraffin. Just slightly shorter chains. Also it is relatively homogenous. And it is one of the few petrol distillates which is FDA approved safe for human consumption. So it doesn't dry out, like 3 in 1 or WD 40, which are crudely refined with lighter and heavier constituents, some of which are volatile, and some of which are heavier. The 3 in 1 oil, you can see red and brown solid crud settle in the bottom of the bottle, even. This is why I use mineral oil for general purpose lubrication and cleaning. It's a known quantity, and it doesn't gum up or evaporate. For low temp things like cleaning and lubricating hand and air tools and whatnot, I don't think it really gets much better. No oil is bad. Any oil is pretty good for lube and rust protection. If it doesn't gum up or go rancid, it's a little gooder.
If I need some solvent action for cleaning up carbon and gunk, I can mix it with a solvent, myself. Or I can clean the tool with solvent, then oil it.
As for no snake oil... Hmm..
Norton honing oil does not list the ingredients on the bottle. Really no specialty snake oils do. So right now I can buy it for almost 8 dollars for 4 oz. Food grade mineral oil, $20.00 a gallon.
I just google MSDS for Norton mineral oil. It's 100% white mineral oil. Obviously that was the only reasonable outcome, since it's food safe.
"Specially formulated" might mean something for quality motor oil. For many specialty oils this really means "we create several tons of this here petroleum distillate byproduct of the gasoline industry every year, and it works about as well as anything else when you put it on your tools. And when we put it in a tiny little applicator bottle, I bet you will pay 10x more for it."
And yeah, this works. I bought 4 oz can of Norton honing oil knowing perfectly well what it was. For the flip top dispenser can. And knowing when I refill it with mineral oil, it's actually still labeled correctly.