Meanings · plain English
What laundry signs mean
Every laundry sign meaning comes down to one question: what may this garment survive? The signs are grouped in five families, and each family answers a different part of wash day. Learn the five shapes below and you can read any laundry sign on clothes, on tags, in any country — the pictograms are international by design (ISO 3758).
Wash (tub) — temperature + agitation. The number is the maximum °C. One bar means a gentle cycle, two bars wool/silk, a hand means hand wash only, a cross means do not wash.
Bleach (triangle) — what whitens safely. Empty allows any bleach, striped lines mean oxygen bleach only, crossed means no bleach at all.
Dry (square) — tumble or air. A circle inside means tumble drying with dots for heat; lines describe line, drip and flat drying, with shade variants for sun-sensitive colours.
Iron — how hot the soleplate may be. One to three dots mean 120, 160 and 210 °C; crossed means do not iron, and a crossed-steam mark means dry iron only.
Pro clean (circle) — cleaner only. Letters P, F and W tell a professional which solvent or wet process to use; crossed means do not dry clean.
Knowing one laundry symbol's meaning is rarely enough — labels combine four or five signs, and their combination is the actual instruction. Tap every sign you see into the laundry signs decoder for a whole-label verdict in plain words, browse all 37 laundry symbols and meanings, or print the laundry symbols chart for the laundry room wall.