The original cleaning products were of course as simple and as natural as you can imagine. Water was mainly used for cleaning, with no soap-like substances until around 2800 BC. This of course was very different to the soap we use today, with the ancient Babylonians using ash and fat. This was later developed by ancient Egyptians around 1500 BC as fats and salt became popular ingredients in soap.
Clothing was hand washed in rivers and streams for a long time! Romans created public laundry areas where fermented urine was the most common ‘detergent’ used to bleach clothing. Birch cinders were used by the Gauls around 2800 B.C to improve cleaning of fabrics. Unfortunately, the waters were not often clean and increased spread of disease such as cholera. Bucking was a common practice which used an alkaline ‘lye’ solution to treat clothes. You can read more about this here.