I believe you won’t understand this, but I hope you can show me I’m mistaken.
Washing clothes by hand involves soaking, beating, scrubbing, and rinsing dirty fabrics. Before we had indoor plumbing, people had to carry all the water for laundry from a pump, well, or spring.
People used to carry water for laundry by hand, heat it over a fire to make washing easier, and then put it in a tub.
This meant using a limited amount of warm, soapy water; it was used to wash dirtier clothes one after the other, starting with the least dirty ones.
After washing, there was another step to remove the soap and water from the clothes. Clear water was used to rinse the soap, and the wet clothes were rolled up and twisted by hand to get rid of the water. When drying and ironing were included, the whole process often took an entire workday.