Being an adult doesn’t come with an instruction manual, but there are certain aspects of daily life that feel like they could really use one.
Take washing clothes for instance, while this task might seem pretty straightforward, the symbols on our clothes can be rather confusing. With different shapes, dots, and letters it’s almost like decoding an entirely different language.
And there are many people who haven’t gotten to grips with this laundry language, according to social media.
An account called @cooltechtipz garnered 58,000 likes recently after sharing a post about ‘finally’ being able to understand washing symbols, but most people in the replies confessed they didn’t actually know what some of the most common ones meant.
@EmilyWasHere90 replied: ‘I still don’t understand and feel like I’m not using it to it’s full capability.’ Similarly @TheGreekGod11 said: ‘I still don‘t understand this s**t.’
If you’re in the same boat and also struggling, here’s a closer look at what it all means…
What do washing symbols on clothes mean?
Anything that has a washing basket full of water refers to how you wash your clothes. A washing basket with a number inside of it tells you which temperature to wash at.
Some however have dots for heat — one dot means cold, two dots mean warm, and three dots signals a hot wash.
Baskets with a hand reaching into them mean that an item can only be washed by hand and not put into a machine, and if it’s got a strike through it, that means dry clean only and not, as some people joke, don’t wash at all ever.
There are also a few other washing symbols you might notice on your clothes, including triangle shapes. These are all to do with bleach and what you can and can’t use on your clothes. Any empty triangle means you can use any type of bleach, but crosses in the triangle mean you can only use certain types of bleach.
A triangle with diagonal lines indicates only non-chlorine bleach can be used, while a triangle with a CL means only chlorine bleach.
What do drying symbols on clothes mean?
Drying symbols can be extra confusing as there are so many but many are similar to washing. For instance, the dots and strike-through are different levels of heat and do not dry in a dryer.
However, this time we have symbols with lines under, one line means delicates only and two lines mean permanent press, which is a setting that helps keep wrinkles out of clothes.
There are also symbols for line dry and dry flat, and circular symbols are for dry cleaning as they show which specific types of solvent can be used.
Once your clothes are dry, there are iron symbols, which also use the dot and strike through method.
So there you have it, now you know. But if you get stuck in future or forget any of the meanings, it turns out your iPhone can help if you happen to be an Apple user.
This is thanks to the Visual Look Up feature, which is driven by artificial intelligence and allows users to photograph objects they want to identify in real life – plants, statues, art, dogs – and find out more about them.
Simply snap a photo, then let iOS do the rest, matching it with similar images to provide more information about what you’re seeing.
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