Designations on clothes for washing (signs, icons and symbols)

Label on clothes Not every person pays attention to the labels that are present on items of clothing. Many people don’t even think about the fact that they contain useful information. Manufacturers indicate there icons containing information about the material from which the clothing is made. About how to care for it, at what temperature to wash it, whether it can be wrung out, ironed, and so on.

If you take all these tips into account, you can increase the service life of your clothes, preserve the properties of the fabric and its color for quite a long time. And if you do not follow the manufacturer's recommendations, you can permanently damage the item.

Naturally, the symbols on clothes for washing may not be clear to everyone. We were not taught at school what this or that sign on the label of the thing we bought meant. And despite the fact that some of the icons may be intuitive to us, it is better to make sure that our guesses are correct and carefully study the decoding of the symbols that we will give below.

Icons on laundry labels

	A sign with a crossed out container of water means that this item cannot be washed.
	The same container with water and a palm in it indicates that this material is suitable for hand washing only.
	Again the same container of water, without any additional details, informs that this item of clothing can be washed either by hand or using a washing machine.
	The same symbol, under which there is a horizontal line, advises using a gentle wash and a light spin cycle.
	The same pattern with two horizontal lines at the bottom strongly recommends that we use only the delicate cycle for washing this item and prohibits hand spinning.
	You can also see various digital values on the water container itself. For example: 40, 60, 80, etc. These numbers limit the maximum washing temperature.
	If you see the value 95 as a number on the icon, then the material from which the item is made can be washed at different temperatures and subjected to boiling. These types of garments are not fussy.
	The triangular image on the label tells us that you can use bleach on this fabric.
	A triangular image crossed out with a cross is quite often found on things made of colored material. It means that we should not use bleach on this item of clothing.

Symbols on dryer labels

Proper care of garments is not only a high-quality wash, corresponding to the type of fabric and temperature that is suitable for it, but also the correct drying process. Therefore, we will also pay attention to the issue of proper drying of things.

Let's not rant any longer and get straight to the point:

	The square sign on the label tells us that you can dry this item using the machine drying program (if it is present in the functionality of your household appliances).
	A square symbol crossed out with a cross, as you might guess, prohibits automatic machine drying.
	If you notice an infinity sign inside the square, also known as the number “8” placed on its side, then know that you cannot wring out this fabric. You will have to turn off this mode in the machine and just hang the wet item so that the water drains from it.The item will dry, it will just take longer.
	If there is a circle in the middle of the square sign, then you can consider this permission to machine spin and dry.
	If you find the same symbol, but only crossed out with a cross, then, as you already guessed, machine spinning and drying are highly not recommended.
	If you see, already familiar to us, a square with a circle inside, but now one point is comfortably located in it, then this thing can be dried only at low temperatures.
	The same sign, only with two dots (resembles a rosette), gives permission to dry the fabric even at high temperatures.
	If you see a horizontal line under a square icon with a circle inside, then you need to use gentle drying.
	Again the same sign, only instead of one line there are two. This means that this fabric can only be dried in a delicate mode.
	If there are 3 lines in a vertical position in the middle of the square, we are not prohibited from drying the item, but spinning should be excluded.
	The sign of a square with a bent line inside indicates that the item can be dried in a vertical position.
	The square image with a minus sign recommends drying the item horizontally.
	A square, the upper left part of which is shaded with 3 diagonal lines, indicates that we need to dry the item in the shade.