How to Read Laundry Icons: Making Sense of Your Laundry Label

Those little tags sewn into all your clothes can be scratchy or really annoying. But before you remove it or cut it off and throw it away forever, it’s important to realize how useful that tag can be in the life of your clothes.

If you look closely at your labels, you’ll find a number of small symbols, like circles and squares — or circles inside squares. No, those icons are not gibberish. They are a cheat code on how to care for and clean your clothes to keep them looking new for longer.

These symptoms can prevent shrinkage, discoloration and healing, so it’s important to know exactly what they mean. Here’s what the laundry detergent symbols on your clothes’ care label say. (Also for more laundry tips, check out these popular laundry products you need to throw away and the majority energy efficient way to wash your clothes to save money.)

The icon for the washing machine

The bathtub icon is a drawing of a bathtub with water, which means that your garment can be washed in the washing machine. While that seems simple enough, there are several different variations of this icon as shown in the image above.

Let’s break down all these additional features:

• If there is a tub that has fallen outside, your garment cannot be machine washed, and needs to be dry cleaned or hand washed.
• If there is a tub with a number on it, that number is the maximum water temperature (in Celsius) for machine washing. A label of 30 means a water temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 means 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and so on (to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 1.8 and add 32 — or ask Google).
• The dots inside the basin indicate the temperature. One dot means cold water, two dots means warm water and three dots means hot water.
• The lines below the sink indicate which washing machine cycle you should use. No lines under the sink means washing the item using the normal cycle, one line under the sink means it needs to be washed on the permanent press cycle and two lines mean the item should be washed on the gentle cycle.
• Hand in dish means you need to hand wash something.

Drying icons

If you see a circle inside a square on your care label, this icon separates the drying instructions. If the dryer icon is disabled, do not tumble dry and instead choose to line or air dry. This is important to note to prevent shrinkage or heat damage.

The dots in the center of the dryer icon indicate which heat setting should be used when the machine is drying. One dot means you can dry it using normal heat. Two dots mean dry on high heat, and an empty circle means you can dry using any temperature setting.

Ironing icons

An iron symbol (as shown above) simply means that you can iron the garment, while a metal icon means that you cannot. But like icons for washing bins, there are variations:

• The dots inside the icon tell you which heat setting to use: one dot inside the metal icon means you need to use the low heat setting, two dots mean you should use the medium heat setting and three dots indicate the high heat setting (usually best for cotton or linen fabrics).
• The lines indicate whether you can breathe the garment. The broken lines below the iron mean that the garment cannot be burned.

Bleach icons

Here’s an important tip: just because it’s white, that doesn’t mean it can’t auto-heat. Certain materials such as spandex, wool, silk, mohair or leather will be damaged by bleach regardless of the color of the material. However, most white linens and cotton clothes are bleach-friendly.

The triangle icons on the care label will indicate whether or not you can whiten. An open triangle means it’s safe to use bleach, but a crossed triangle means don’t use any type of bleach. If there is a triangle icon with lines in it (like the middle icon above) you can use nonchlorine bleach exclusively, but only this type, otherwise the garment may be damaged.

Dry cleaning icons

You can’t just throw the whole garment in the washer and be done with it. Some items, especially professional clothes or clothes made of luxury fabrics, need to be dry cleaned. Dry cleaning instructions are indicated with circle symbols.

If you see a circle (as shown above), then your garment needs to be cleaned by a professional dry cleaner. However, the broken circle icon means that the garment can be easily damaged by solvents used in dry cleaning processes. In this case, you will follow machine or hand wash instructions.

A circle with a letter inside tells the dry cleaner what type of cleaning process to use. While you may not need to know this to clean it yourself, it may be useful to know anyway.

• The capital letter “A” means that the dry cleaner can use any cleaning solvent on the garment.
• The capital letter “P” means that the dry cleaner can use any solvent without anything specifically listed.
• The capital letter “F” means that the dry cleaner will be using petroleum based solvents and cannot be dry cleaned with normal solvents.
• The capital letter “W” indicates that the garment needs to be washed with water.

For better or worse, laundry is part of our weekly, if not daily routine. So it’s important to do it right. We have lots of laundry tips, including these nine hacks solve common problems as well as the best way to machine wash your sheets.

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