Skip to content
Laundry Symbols

What do the laundry symbols on my tag mean?

Photograph the care label and our AI reads every symbol, from wash temperature to the dots on the iron, and turns them into one plain instruction.

ReadyLoad a care tag

Free, no sign-up. Your photo is read in memory and never stored.

How does the laundry symbol scanner work?

It finds every symbol on your tag, reads each one up close, then writes the care steps in the order you need them: wash, bleach, dry, iron and professional care.

  1. 1

    Load the tag

    Take a close photo of the care label, or upload one. Fill the frame with the symbols and keep it sharp.

  2. 2

    The AI finds and reads each symbol

    A detector draws a box around every symbol. A second model then rereads each box at full resolution, so it catches the dots and the bars that change the meaning.

  3. 3

    You get one wash program

    The result reads like a machine setting: "wash at 30°, gentle cycle, no bleach, do not tumble dry, iron low". Each symbol links to a page that explains it.

The five laundry symbol shapes

Every care symbol starts from one of five shapes. Learn these and you can read most tags without a scanner. Dots add heat, bars under a symbol make the cycle gentler, and a cross means do not.

Washing symbols The tub: temperature, hand wash and gentle cycles Bleaching symbols The triangle: any bleach, oxygen bleach only, or none Drying symbols The square: tumble dryer heat, line, drip and flat drying Ironing symbols The iron: one, two or three dots for the temperature Dry cleaning symbols The circle: dry cleaning and wet cleaning by a professional

What do the dots and lines mean?

Dots set the heat and lines set how gentle the cycle is. These small marks are where most people, and most scanners, go wrong, so here they are side by side.

DotsWash tubIronTumble dryer
130°C, cold110°C, lowLow heat
240°C, warm150°C, mediumMedium heat
350°C, warm200°C, highHigh heat
4 to 660°C, 70°C, 95°C

Lines under a symbol

No line means a normal cycle. One line under a tub or dryer square means the permanent press or synthetics cycle, with a cooler rinse and a shorter spin. Two lines mean the delicate or wool cycle. Under a P, F or W circle, the lines ask the dry cleaner for a mild or very mild process.

US and European tags

US labels follow ASTM D5489 and use dots in the tub. European, UK and most Asian labels follow ISO 3758 and print the temperature in degrees Celsius. The washing symbols guide shows both versions side by side.

How accurate is it?

We tested the scanner on 132 photos of real care tags taken with phones, from a different source than anything it learned from. It read 96% of the symbols exactly right, including the dots and lines, and got every symbol right on 78% of the tags.

It learned from about 900 labelled tag photos shared openly on Roboflow Universe, plus 8,000 practice tags we drew ourselves so it could see every symbol many times. The method page lists the data, the licences and where it still makes mistakes.

Symbols right
96%
Whole tag right
78%
Symbols it knows
42
Photos stored
0

How to photograph a care label

A sharp close-up matters more than anything else. The symbols are small, and a blurry dot turns a warm wash into a cold one.

  • Get close. The row of symbols should fill most of the picture. Tap to focus before you shoot.
  • Flatten the tag. Hold it flat between two fingers so the symbols are not bent around a fold.
  • Avoid glare. Satin tags shine. Tilt the tag slightly away from the light until the reflection goes.
  • Use daylight. Faded print on a white tag needs light. Near a window works better than the flash.
  • Cut-out tags. If you already removed the label, any photo of it works, even an old one in your camera roll.

Frequently asked questions

What do the laundry symbols mean?
Every care symbol is built from five shapes: a tub for washing, a triangle for bleach, a square for drying, an iron for ironing and a circle for professional cleaning. A cross means do not, dots mean heat, and bars underneath mean a gentler cycle. The laundry symbols chart shows all of them.
How accurate is the laundry symbol scanner?
On 132 real tag photos it had never seen, it read 96% of the symbols right and got every symbol on 78% of the tags right. Most mistakes are the small marks: the dots and the bars under a symbol. The method page has the full numbers.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
Yes, to our server, but only to be read. It is never stored. The AI reads it in memory in about a second, sends back the symbols and discards the photo. Nothing is written to disk or kept in a log.
What do the dots in laundry symbols mean?
Dots mean heat, and more dots mean hotter. In a wash tub, one dot is 30°C (cold), two is 40°C (warm) and three is 50°C. On an iron, one dot is 110°C, two is 150°C and three is 200°C. In a tumble dryer circle, one dot is low heat and three is high.
What do the lines under the washing symbol mean?
Lines under a tub make the cycle gentler. One line means the permanent press or synthetics cycle, with less spinning. Two lines mean the delicate or wool cycle. No line means a normal cycle.
What does a cross through a laundry symbol mean?
A cross means do not. A crossed tub means do not wash, a crossed triangle do not bleach, a crossed square with a circle do not tumble dry, a crossed iron do not iron and a crossed circle do not dry clean.
Why do US and European care labels look different?
The US uses the ASTM D5489 standard and Europe the ISO 3758 standard. US tubs show dots for temperature where European tubs print the number, and line drying is a curved line in the US and a vertical line in Europe. The scanner reads both.
What should I do if the scanner reads a symbol wrong?
Tap the symbol in the result to see the next most likely readings and pick the right one. For the next photo, get closer so the tag fills the porthole, hold the phone steady and avoid glare on shiny tags.

Got a tag in front of you?

Scan it now with the laundry symbol scanner, or look the symbols up on the laundry symbols chart.

Scan a tag