What the washing labels on your clothes actually mean - and how to avoid laundry disasters

It's easy to ignore the little white labels that seem incomprehensible on your clothes. But the laundry symbols can save you from the disappointment of a shrunken sweater, and stop your beloved outfits turning to ruined rags.

This group of UK washing, bleach, ironing and drying symbols helps you decide if your clothing is safe to wash in your washing machine, and which setting with what temperature you should use, according to supermarket laundry favourites Ariel. You should also see the symbols appear in the same order on every care tag.

A tub shape indicates the washing instructions. A triangle tells you what to do with bleach. A square symbol will instruct on how to dry the item, while an iron does what it says on the tin - ironing. There are also see the 'special care' symbols, a circle, used alone or in conjunction with other shapes.

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Here are your washing instructions, according to Ariel:

• A machine washable garment is generally depicted as a bucket filled with water (except for the ‘do not wring’ symbol)
• If the garment is machine washable, then you’ll either see dots or numbers inside the bucket symbol, representing the recommended maximum temperature: one dot means 30 °C (meaning that you have to wash your clothing in cold water), two dots 40 °C (warm water), and four dots 60 °C
• In case you see one line drawn underneath the bucket, it means that your piece of clothing should be washed on a synthetic cycle, while two lines represent the gentle or wool wash cycle
• If you find the hand wash symbol on your garment’s fabric care label, wash the item by hand at 40 °C or lower, or use your washing machine’s hand wash program.

It's important to check if your clothing or fabrics can handle bleach, here's how you know:

• If you see an empty triangle, that means you can safely use bleach on your piece of clothing when necessary, says Ariel
• Diagonal lines inside the triangle refer to the use of non-chlorine bleach
• In the case when the triangle is crossed out by two lines, you shouldn’t use bleach at all

"To prevent your garment from shrinking or becoming misshapen when drying, you can find a number of helpful symbols on the fabric care label, informing you of the most sure-fire way to dry your clothes without causing any damage to the fabric," continues Ariel.

It's important to know exactly how to care for your clothes and garments (MEN Media)

• A square with a circle inside means that the item can be safely tumble dried
• The number of dots inside the tumble dry symbol indicates what temperature setting to use: one dot stands for low heat, two dots for medium, and three for high heat setting
• No dot means that you can tumble dry your clothes on any heat
• If you see a bar below the dryer symbol, then use the ‘Permanent Press’ setting, while two bars mean that you have to use the ‘Delicate’ setting
• If the symbol is crossed over, do not tumble dry your garment, but let it dry naturally instead
• A square with three vertical lines inside represents drip drying, a single horizontal line in the middle indicates flat drying, and a drooping line means hang to dry

For ironing:

• Ironing symbols depict an iron with dots inside representing the highest temperature that you should use to iron the garment
• If the iron doesn’t have any dots, it means that you can iron your piece of clothing at any temperature
• Usually, you’ll find the one-dot ironing symbol on delicate items like woollen and silk, the two-dot symbol on synthetics, and the three-dot symbol on linen and cotton clothing
• If you see a cross over the symbol, it means that the garment isn’t suitable for ironing
• Two lines shooting out from the bottom of the iron with a cross over it stands for ‘steaming is not allowed’

If your piece of clothing should be handed over to a professional to be dry cleaned, the labels will tell you and will also inform the dry-cleaner what solvent to use.

A circle means that the item is suitable for dry cleaning, while the letters instruct the dry-cleaner on the required process.

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