Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by ryanmercer on Monday February 10, 2020 @02:29PM (#22292337)

Common soap bars, they weren't really a thing until the mid 1850's and you had to make your own soap unless you were wealthy prior to that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap#19th_century

Similarly, liquid soap which came to be around the same time.

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Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by pppp on Monday February 10, 2020 @02:32PM (#22292367)

Liquid soaps are a poor choice from an environmental/cost standpoint. Most of the soap goes down the drain and is wasted. Bar soap stays on your hands and last many times longer.

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Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by ryanmercer on Monday February 10, 2020 @02:49PM (#22292543)

That may be the case now, but liquid soaps revolutionized laundry when they came to be. Washing clothes with bar soap is a royal pain. Powdered laundry detergents really didn't start to catch on until the 1940's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry_detergent

Also, washing machines didn't really start to catch on until the mid 1940's, prior to that it was still pretty much scrub boards. Scrub boards are bad enough with liquid soap.

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Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by new2628 on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:07PM (#22293356)

I found soap nuts to be the cheapest, most eco-friendly, and reasonably efficient detergent there is. Just drop a bunch of soap nuts in a cloth bag into the washing machine, and it produces enough foam to make everything clean.

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