Care Label Decoder
Decode any of the 18 ISO 3758 care symbols, and find out what happens if you ignore it.
The tub, the triangle, the square, the circle, the iron. Five families, eighteen symbols, and one of them is the difference between a jumper and a doll’s jumper. Tap a symbol to read it.
Interactive
Label decoder
Tap a symbol from your care label. No guessing, no scrolling.
19 symbols. Pick one.
How to read a care label in ten seconds
Symbols always appear in the same order, left to right, and each family has its own shape. Once you know the shapes you can skip the ones you do not care about.
| Shape | Family | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| Tub of water | Washing | Maximum temperature and how much agitation the fabric tolerates |
| Triangle | Bleaching | Whether any bleach is allowed, and which kind |
| Square | Drying | Tumble drying, and how the item should be laid out if not |
| Iron | Ironing | Maximum plate temperature, and whether steam is allowed |
| Circle | Professional care | Which dry-cleaning solvents a cleaner may use |
Three rules that override everything else
- A cross through a symbol is absolute. It is not a suggestion about the best result — it means the process will damage the item.
- A bar under a symbol means gentler. One bar is a reduced cycle, two bars is very gentle. Most machines call these synthetics and delicates.
- Dots mean temperature. One dot is coolest, three is hottest — on the iron and on the tumble-dryer square alike.
The temperature on a wash tub is a maximum, not a target. Washing colder than the label says is always safe for the fabric. It is only unsafe when you are washing to kill something — dust mites, or bedding after illness — and then the temperature matters more than the fabric does.
When the label is missing
Cut-out labels, hand-me-downs, vintage. In that case you work from the fibre instead, and our fabric guides give the limits for each one. When you cannot identify the fibre either, treat the item as the most fragile thing it could plausibly be: cold water, no agitation, no wringing, dry flat.