The earlier Chinese laundries were hand laundries. Proprietors and laundry workers would use metal basins and washboards to wash customers' laundry by hand. This was a long, labour-intensive and physically-demanding process, carried out in sub-optimal working conditions as many buildings had poor ventilation and therefore suffered from mold issues.

As technology developed, the laundries adopted machinery (such as the 1900 Cataract Electric Washer) which made their tasks much easier to carry out.