People use variety of methods to wash clothes. Usually after adding the soap, they beat the clothes on a stone, or beat it with a paddle, scrub with a brush or the mixture is agitated in a washing machine. Why is agitation necessary to get clean clothes?
Soap lowers the surface tension of water. The long chain non-ionic hydrocarbon group in soap gets attached to the oil or grease droplets and loosens them from the fibres of cloth along with the dirt. However this loosening is insufficient to remove the grease with dirt completely. Hence the clothes are agitated to remove the grease droplets completely.
