Is foam intrinsically important to the dish-cleaning process, or is this just a correlation?

Question

I’ve noticed when cleaning dishes that when the cleaning solution is “sudsy,” cleaning seems to happen more quickly (less scrubbing, etc.).

Is this because:

* The suds themselves help with cleaning
* The suds don’t help with cleaning but they indicate that the cleaning solution has a particular desirable property;
* The suds don’t help with cleaning and aren’t related to any desirable property.

A related question is: For any effective cleaning solution can one create a cleaning solution which is just as effective but has very little sudsiness?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

For most of human history, suds were a byproduct of the property that made soap work well. Around WWII, households started using more detergents, which don’t require or create suds, and they are only there so people trust it’s working.