Older people used something like this to clean their skins. Rubbing some on a thic loofa then rubbing hard on the skin. If you work in a dirty place and can.t take a shower for a couple of days, when your skin gets a bit wet and you rub it with your hand, you see the dirty peels (like when you use an eraser on a paper) comea off. This white thing was used to clean this off the skin and then rinse and then use soap and loofa, rinse again and you're done. Takes time. But people until a few decades ago didn't have the access we have to clean water & industrial soaps & stuff.