Laundry… some time ago
In past centuries doing laundry it was neither obvious nor easy, since the lack of water in the houses forced one to go to public fountains, an inconvenience to which was added the high cost of soap, that less affluent families struggled to buy.
This is why showing off clean clothes and underwear was, for a long time, a privilege for the nobles and the rich, and not always, just think of the filth that prevailed in the magnificent court of Versailles in the 1700s (https://www.pilloledistoria.it/1569/storia-moderna/versailles-splendore-sporcizia).
To spend less, especially among the working class, for a long time the ranno was used instead of soap , a homemade cleaner with ash or urine .
The construction of pipelines in the nineteenth century led to a greater availability of water for people, but to reach a truly satisfactory level of daily personal hygiene, it was necessary to wait until the 1900s.