Laundry care, decoded
What do the symbols on your clothing tag actually mean?
Tap the shape you see on the label. We’ll narrow it down and tell you exactly what to do, in plain English, before you risk the sweater.
Step one
What’s the outer shape?
Or browse by category
Full chart →What a care label tells you
A care label is the garment maker’s set of instructions for cleaning and finishing that item. The small symbols cover five separate parts of care. Read them in the same order each time: washing, bleaching, drying, ironing, then professional cleaning. Once you know the five base shapes, a crowded tag becomes much easier to scan.
The washtub covers washing. A triangle covers bleach. A square covers drying, including tumble drying and natural drying. The iron shape covers ironing, and a circle gives instructions for professional cleaning. Marks added to those shapes carry the detail. Dots and printed numbers can set a maximum temperature. Bars under a symbol call for a milder process. A cross through a symbol forbids that process.
Treat a marked temperature as a ceiling. You can choose a cooler setting, but do not go hotter than the label shows. When a process is crossed out, check the garment’s other care symbols for the permitted method instead of guessing at a substitute.
How to use the decoder
Start with the outside shape on your tag. Choose the tub, triangle, square, iron, or circle in the decoder above. The next choices ask about the marks that distinguish one instruction from another. Count the dots. Look for one or two bars underneath. Check for a cross, letters, a hand, or lines inside the shape.
Match what is actually printed rather than what you expect the garment to say. Two similar symbols can give different limits, and a small bar is easy to miss on a worn label. If the tag is faded, use the full care symbol chart to compare nearby symbols side by side.
The result explains what the selected symbol permits or forbids. It does not replace the rest of the tag. Read the complete sequence before cleaning the item, since a safe wash setting says nothing about whether the garment can go into a tumble dryer or under an iron.
US and international labels
Use the region control in the header to switch between US and International. The choice changes the symbol versions shown by the guide and is saved in your browser for your next visit. It does not change the care instructions printed by the garment maker.
The two systems share most base shapes, but they do not draw every instruction in the same way. International labels follow ISO 3758 and the GINETEX system. US labels use ASTM D5489. Wash temperature is one obvious difference: a US label can use dots, while an international label can print a Celsius number inside the washtub. A traveler, imported garment, or secondhand item may therefore carry marks that look unfamiliar even when the underlying instruction is familiar.
Our US and international comparison puts the two systems together and explains where the drawings or available instructions differ. Check that page when a symbol does not match the version you normally see.
Keep reading
The full chart is the fastest way to scan every symbol family at once. Use it when you already recognize the shape or want to compare two close matches. Each entry leads to a page with the meaning and the visual details that identify it.
The laundry guides explain how to read a complete care label and how common instructions fit together. They are useful after you have decoded the symbols and need the wider sequence in plain English.
A care label tells you which processes are allowed. It does not tell you how to remove a particular spill. For that job, start with the stain guide, then check the garment’s label before washing, drying, or ironing. The item’s own instructions always take priority over a general reference.