system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do we have different soaps for different things? What are the differences between, say, shampoo and dishwasher liquid that prevents them from being interchangeable?

Why couldn't we use hand soap in our hair, shampoo for our dishes, dishwasher liquid for our laundry, etc? Are there chemical properties of each that only allow them to be used on certain materials/in certain conditions?
gpt
Shampoos, hand soaps, dish soaps, etc have foaming agents that you would not want in your dishwasher or washing machine. Dishwasher detergents have abrasives to scrub dirt away, but this probably wouldn't be desirable or necessary for a shampoo. 

There are lots of ingredients in these products that are tailored to the specific use they're intended for. You can try this yourself by washing your hair with body soap or dawn dish soap and compare to a shampoo. Or put dawn in your washing machine and observe the results.