Binary liquid mixtures are studied using femtosecond pump-probe thermal-lens (TL) spectroscopy. Changes in the measured TL signals as a function of relative concentration of binary mixtures show that these result from a combined effect of physical and molecular properties of the constituent binary liquids. The experimental TL values deviate from the ones calculated from phenomenological equations. These, we argue, are due to an underestimation of the influence of molecular interactions when the TL signals are calculated by using physical parameters only.