How did people wash up before washing up liquid?

[MoiraRosesBaybay]

It just occurred to me that I have no idea.
What did people use in say the 1920s or the 1820s even?

Back at Cold Comfort Farm, washing the dishes was one of my childhood jobs.
I used Sunlight soap, Ajax or Vim powder for anything hard or greasy, soda crystals for soaking anything burnt on baking trays etc.
Greasy pans were helped along with water & soda crystals simmering on a low gas flame. Brillo pads were a special treat.
Glassware first, tea plates & saucers, soup & dinner plates, cutlery, any cooking implements, then pans etc last. Of course everything was cooked "from scratch" as it is so quaintly called now, so there was always mounds of washing up.
Once clean, everything was rinsed in hot water, then drained or dried.

In my own home, I got a dishwasher as soon as they were available at reasonable cost, in the late 70s/very early 80s. And it still cheers me up each time I open it with its rows of sparkling dishes!

They ate out of a single trough that was scrubbed clean by trained foxes

I was born in 1949. I remember my Mum using washing powder..

All you need to do is read Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, where the rather practical heroine drags her distant cousins kicking and screaming into the 20th century. There’s a bit where they go on about ‘clettering’ the dishes with a bundle of old twigs, whereupon she introduces them to the wonders of a dish mop and soap that works. 🤣

My Nan used a bar of household soap but I can’t remember whether she grated it.

😃was just about to make reference to opal fruits when I read this.

Don't forget Oil of Ulay too

My MIL used OMO or DAZ washing powder on her dishes! It was dreadful and irritated your hands. In the 1980s we insisted she used washing up liquid, she bought the cheapest and watered it down.
She also used the hard Izal toilet paper!
Hard up? No owned a 5 bedroomed house in Fulham.

All you need to do is read Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, where the rather practical heroine drags her distant cousins kicking and screaming into the 20th century. There’s a bit where they go on about ‘clettering’ the dishes with a bundle of old twigs, whereupon she introduces them to the wonders of a dish mop and soap that works

Well, she gave the mop to Adam, but he thought it was too lovely to use, kept it as an ornament, and went on clettering the dishes with twigs.

I once asked my late dad what they did before washing up liquid, and he said that in his childhood home there was a metal cage hanging on the kitchen sink tap, in which was kept pieces of soap - the same idea as the soap keeper above - but in his version when they ran the hot tap the water went through the soap basket and created soapy water.

I'm upset because Fairy soap (the green bars) was discontinued. I can't function without Fairy soap. I found a bar recently - just one precious bar. The very last bar of Fairy. Sob! It's really great for laundry.

They were so hungry they licked the plates clean and then ate them? That's when the plate was a big chunk of bread I think.

My Nana used Fairy green soap when I was little. She was born in 1894. I think she switched to the liquid when I was a teen. The soap had probably been discontinued by then.
She used the same bar for everything, clothes spot cleaning, hands, everything.
I loved the smell.

I was born in 1955. I remember my grandma using green bar soap. My mum was trendy and used new fangled Squeezy liquid.

How do some people make it to adulthood?!

I saw a thread on Mumsnet today where someone had a house on a Greek island where there was flooding, so no water and sporadic electricity. She had googled some ideas.

How do some people make it to adulthood?!

Huh?

🤣🤣

'soft soap'. It's soap made with potassium instead of sodium hydroxide, it doesn't foam as much as traditional soap and is better at dealing with grease.

I used to watch a programme about a victorian kitchen and I have a friend who makes soap.