Fabric care
How to read a care label, and what the symbols actually mean
Five symbols cover almost everything you own. Learning them takes about two minutes and prevents most laundry accidents.
A care label has five shapes and everything else is a modifier. The tub means washing, the triangle bleaching, the square drying, the iron ironing, and the circle professional cleaning. A cross through any of them means do not. Once you know that, most labels read in a glance.
The tub
Dots inside the tub give temperature — one dot is cold, two is warm, three is hot. A hand in the tub means hand wash only. Lines beneath the tub reduce the mechanical action: one line is a gentle cycle, two lines is delicate.
The circle
A plain circle means dry clean. A letter inside it tells the cleaner which solvent to use — it is information for a professional, not for you. A crossed circle means the garment must not be dry cleaned at all, which matters, because handing over a crossed-circle item without mentioning it is how damage happens.
When the label has gone
If the label has been cut out or worn away, treat the garment as the most delicate thing it could plausibly be: cold water, gentle cycle, no bleach, no tumble drying, and cool ironing on the reverse. If it is structured, embellished or expensive, send it out instead and say the label is missing.
Related services
- Laundry See details
- Dry Cleaning See details
