About Fabric Care Atlas

Most washing advice on the internet is written by people who have never ruined anything. We started from the opposite end: from the jacket that came out of the machine two sizes smaller, and from the care label nobody could read.

What this site is

Fabric Care Atlas answers one question in as much detail as it deserves: how do you actually clean this particular thing without wrecking it? Not “use a mild detergent” — the water temperature, the dwell time, what to do when it does not work the first time, and the point at which you should stop and take it to a professional.

Every guide is organised the same way, because the questions are always the same ones:

• the one-line answer, for readers who already half know what they are doing;
• the care-label symbols that apply, decoded;
• the method, in timed steps;
• what goes wrong, and how to recover from it.

How the methods are checked

Every guide carries a line near the top saying how that particular method was arrived at, and it is worth reading before the method itself. Most of them currently read researched from published sources and cross-checked against this site’s other guides; not physically tested. That means what it says: the method comes from manufacturer care sheets, published standards and the sources a search on the subject actually returns, checked against everything else on this site so two guides never contradict each other, and not run on a test garment.

Where a guide describes something used in practice rather than only researched, its line says so instead, and names what was done. We would rather tell you which of the two you are reading than let you assume.

Where an official standard exists, we follow it rather than inventing our own. Care-label symbols on this site follow ISO 3758, the international textile care labelling standard. Fibre temperature limits come from the fibre, not from a habit.

About the photographs

Roughly two thirds of the images on this site are generated rather than photographed, and the rest come from a stock library. We would rather tell you that than let a picture pass for evidence.

They are there to show you what a material, a tool or a stage of a method looks like — a raised suede nap, a felted knit, a rust mark set into cotton. They are illustrations, and no image on this site is evidence for a claim: every temperature, dwell time and prohibition in a guide comes from the sources named above, never from a picture. If an image and the text ever disagree, the text is what was checked.

What we will not do

• We will not tell you a risky method is safe. Suede, viscose, unlined wool and anything with an adhesive backing can be destroyed by water alone. When that is the case, the guide leads with it.
• We will not pretend a home method matches dry cleaning. It sometimes does. Usually it does not, and the difference is worth naming.
• We do not take payment for recommendations. The site is funded by display advertising. Advertisers have no say in what a guide says, and we do not run sponsored posts.

Who runs it

Fabric Care Atlas is an independent publication, not a brand and not a cleaning service. It is published by NET STUDIO LLC, and editorial responsibility sits with Chriss R.

Chriss is an industrial engineering and maintenance engineer, trained in electronics, mechanics and fluid mechanics. He repairs domestic appliances, including the washing machines and dryers these guides discuss, and spent two years working in a professional kitchen. That background is the reason the guides here tend to explain what a machine or a fibre is actually doing, rather than which button to press.

See the contact page for how to reach us, including corrections.

Corrections

If a method on this site damaged something of yours, we want to hear about it, and we will say so on the page. Write to us with the fabric, the method you followed and what happened. Guides carry a visible last-updated date so you can see when a page was last checked.