How to Decode Laundry Symbols in a Flash With a Printable Cheat Sheet

Decipher those confusing laundry symbols on your clothes with this handy chart.

Leslie Corona is the Associate Home Director at Realsimple.com. She has been styling, organizing, writing, and reporting on all things in the home space for a decade. She was previously at Good Housekeeping, HGTV Magazine, and Parents. She has shared her expertise on the TODAY show, Cheddar, and local television news outlets.

Sometimes the laundry tag on your clothes and linens looks more like a set of undecipherable hieroglyphics than a useful list of detailed instructions for how to do laundry. Fortunately, we created a laundry symbol cheat sheet to help you decipher the most common laundry symbols. For quick reference, print it out and tack it up in your laundry room or keep a copy saved on your phone. Who knows? You might find yourself checking it when you're shopping to make sure that trendy boyfriend blazer isn't dry clean only.

Laundry Symbols Meaning

The first thing you need to know is what each of the general symbols means.

• The icon that looks like a bucket of water describes how to wash the piece.
• The square with a circle in the center refers to drying.
• The iron instructs you on how to—well—iron.

The remaining laundry tag symbols refer to bleaching (triangle), dry-cleaning (circle), and non-machine drying (square) requirements.

Each of the above-mentioned laundry symbols has specifications within them: One dot on the icon means to perform that function on a cold or low cycle, two dots mean warm or medium, and three dots mean hot or high.

Save our laundry symbol cheat sheet printable.

Laundry Symbols for Washing

All the symbols that depict a bucket with waves indicate various washing methods you can use on that fabric. Here's the deets on what each one means:

Washing symbols with dots

The dots indicate the temperature you should choose when you machine wash the item. It's one dot for cold, two dots for medium/warm, and three dots for hot.

Washing symbol with hand

As you might expect, a hand symbol means you need to hand wash the garment.

Washing symbol with an X through it

You can't wash this item. (There's likely a dry-cleaning symbol in the mix then.)

Washing symbols with lines beneath them

These washing symbols indicate specialized wash settings. One line means permanent press setting, while two lines means gentle or delicate settings.

Laundry Symbols for Drying

The square symbols give you the details on how to dry your laundry. Again, there are an array of little codes that'll give you insight into how to

Drying symbols with lines through them

Step away from the clothes dryer if you see these symbols! If it's a flat, horizontal line, dry the item flat. If it's a curved line, you can line dry.

Drying symbols with circles and dots

The main circle indicates that you can use your clothes dryer to dry your clothes. Dots give you a sense of the temperature to use: one dot for cool, two dots for medium temperature, three dots for high temperature. If the circle is solid with an empty square around it, it means no heat on the dryer.

Drying symbols with lines

You'll sometimes see lines below the clothes drying symbol. A single line indicates using the permanent press cycle, while double lines indicate the delicate or gentle cycle.

Laundry Symbols for Ironing

That cute little iron-shaped symbol gives you a sense of how (and whether) you can iron your clothing.

Iron symbols with dots

The iron symbol with dots means that it can definitely be ironed, but you need to stick with their temperature recommendations. Again, one dot is low, two dots mean medium, and three dots is high.

Iron symbols with an X

As you can imagine, the X means no—but for the ironing symbols, its placement matters. If the X is over the iron proper, it means the item can't be ironed. If it's below the iron, it means not to use steam.

Special Laundry Symbols

You may encounter a few additional laundry symbols you'll need to decipher, to help you learn about dry cleaning, bleaching, and other laundry needs.

Triangle laundry symbols

The triangle gives you information about whether you can use bleach on it. A triangle means you can bleach it, a triangle with an X through it means you cannot bleach it, and a triangle with several angled stripes within it tells you to use non-chlorine bleach.

Circle laundry symbols

The circle without a square around it is all about dry cleaning. A circle means it can be dry cleaned, the circle with an X through it means no dry cleaning allowed.

Bowtie laundry symbol

You might see a bowtie-shaped symbol with a big X through it. That indicates that you shouldn't wring out the clothes, or you might risk damaging them.

Helpful Laundry Tips

If decoding symbols wasn't enough, we're also sharing a couple of game-changing laundry insights that'll help your clothes, towels, and other laundry last longer.

• Sort by type, not by color. Most of us automatically separate lights from darks. But the experts say that sorting by fabric is a tactic you can take to preserve your pieces. Instead of sorting by color, combine hardy items (like towels, denim, and twill) and keep T-shirts, nightgowns, and other delicates aside for a separate load—likewise for other large or bulky items like throw blankets and sheets. (A little laundry room organization can help keep everything neatly separated.)
• Put your items in the dryer one by one. Untangle the items as you pull them out of the wash and add each to the dryer separately. This will help them dry completely within one cycle.
• Don't overstuff your washer (or dryer). Keep your laundry load around half or three-fourths of the way full for optimum efficiency.

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