Your favourite jumper has shrunk in the wash?
You wandered if your evening dress should be hand-washed or dry-cleaned by a dry-cleaner?
Stop asking yourself the question. It is quite simple: learn how to properly read clothing care labels.
The problem is many of you cut the labels out on clothes, but without labels, items no longer have id card. If you cut the label off, our experts will assess the composition of your items but may make some reserves in case of doubt.
More about washing symbols
Washing
Depicted as a bucket filled with water, the Wash Symbol tells you-what temperature or machine setting you should use to wash the item of clothing. Inside the ‘Normal Wash’ symbol, there will either be a temperature value or one to six dots signifying temperature ranges.
Bleaching
A triangle without anything in the middle means that any kind of bleach can be used on the clothing when needed. A triangle filled with diagonal lines means that only non-chlorine bleaches should be used. Check the ingredients on your bleach to see if it contains chlorine. A solid black triangle with crossed lines means ‘Do Not Bleach’. You should not attempt to use any kind of bleach on this garment.
Drying
The basic tumble dryer symbol is a square with a circle in the middle of it. As with the washing symbols, the number of dots inside the circle will tell you the heat setting you should put your tumble dryer on to, as well as any specific program settings required: One dot means Tumble Dry Low, Three dots mean Tumble Dry High. When an item is marked as ‘Do Not Tumble Dry’ with a cross through the drying symbol, leave this garment to drip-dry on a drying rack, in an airing cupboard, or outside on your washing line rather than putting it in the dryer.
Ironing
To make life easy, the ironing symbol is shaped like an old-fashioned iron. One dot means that it can be ironed on low. Two dots mean that it can be ironed on medium. Ironing symbols also employ the same dot system for heat levels, which should be adjustable on your iron: three dots mean that the item can be ironed on high.
Dry Cleaning
The Dry Cleaning symbol is a circle. For clothes that are dry clean only, the circle has a letter ‘P’ inside it. The clothes that should be dry-cleaned under normal conditions will have a letter ‘F’ inside the circle. A crossed-out circle means that you should not dry-clean the item.