Wash, bleach, dry, and iron care icons you can copy and paste. Click any symbol to copy it instantly.
The official ISO 3758 laundry care symbols printed on clothing tags are not encoded as standalone Unicode text characters, so this reference gathers the closest Unicode equivalents, emoji and geometric shapes, grouped by what each care instruction means: washing and water, bleaching, drying, ironing heat levels, and “do not” prohibitions. Every tile copies a single character you can paste into care labels, packing lists, notes, and posts. Use the Unicode name shown beside each symbol so readers know exactly what it stands for.
A care tag is built from five shapes: a wash tub, a triangle, a square, an iron and a circle. Find the shape on your tag, then read the detail: a number, dots, a bar under it, a letter, or a cross over it. A cross always means “do not”.
A bucket shape with a wavy line on top for the water. A number inside is the hottest water allowed, in °C. A tub with dots in place of a number belongs to a different set of marks that we did not check, so we do not decode it here.
| What the mark looks like | What it means | Usual tag wording |
|---|---|---|
| A wash tub with a number inside: 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 or 95. | Wash in a machine at no more than that many °C. A normal cycle is fine. | Machine wash |
| The wash tub with one bar under it. | Gentle cycle. The temperature limit stays, with less tumbling and spinning. | Gentle cycle; mild wash |
| The wash tub with two bars under it. | Very gentle cycle, for example for wool. Much less tumbling and spinning. | Very mild wash |
| A wash tub with a hand in it. | Hand wash only, in water no hotter than 40 °C. Some tags allow only room-temperature water, around 20 to 30 °C. Do not rub, pull or wring. | Hand wash; no wring or twist |
| A wash tub crossed out with two diagonal lines. | Do not wash, by machine or by hand. | Do not wash |
It answers one question: which bleach is allowed.
| What the mark looks like | What it means | Usual tag wording |
|---|---|---|
| An empty triangle. | Any bleach is allowed, chlorine or oxygen. | Bleach when needed |
| A triangle with two slanted lines inside. | Oxygen bleach only. No chlorine bleach. | Only non-chlorine bleach, when needed |
| A triangle crossed out. | Do not bleach. | Do not bleach |
A square with a circle inside is the tumble dryer. Dots in the circle show the heat: more dots, more heat.
| What the mark looks like | What it means | Usual tag wording |
|---|---|---|
| A square with a circle inside and one dot in the circle. | Tumble dry on low heat, with exhaust air up to about 60 °C. | Tumble dry low |
| A square with a circle inside and two dots in the circle. | Tumble dry on normal heat, up to about 80 °C. | Tumble dry |
| A square with a circle inside, crossed out. | Do not tumble dry. | Do not tumble dry |
A square with no circle is drying without a machine. The lines say how: vertical for hanging, horizontal for lying flat, two lines for drip dry.
| What the mark looks like | What it means | Usual tag wording |
|---|---|---|
| A plain square with one vertical line inside. | Hang it on a line to dry. | Line dry |
| A plain square with two vertical lines inside. | Drip dry on a line: hang it dripping wet, with no spinning or wringing first. | Drip dry |
| A plain square with one horizontal line inside. | Dry flat: lay it out horizontally. | Dry flat |
| A plain square with two horizontal lines inside. | Drip dry flat: lay it out dripping wet, with no spinning or wringing first. | Drip dry flat |
| Any of the four above with a slanted line across one corner of the square. | Dry it in the shade, out of direct sun. | Line dry in shade |
Dots show the hottest setting the soleplate may reach: more dots, more heat.
| What the mark looks like | What it means | Usual tag wording |
|---|---|---|
| An iron with one dot. | Iron on low heat, soleplate up to 120 °C. | Cool iron; iron at low temperature |
| An iron with one dot and crossed-out steam lines under it. | Iron up to 120 °C with no steam. Steam can damage it. | No steam; iron at low temperature without steam |
| An iron with two dots. | Iron on medium heat, soleplate up to 160 °C. Steam is allowed. | Warm iron; iron at moderate temperature |
| An iron with three dots. | Iron on high heat, soleplate up to 210 °C. | Hot iron |
| An iron crossed out. | Do not iron. | Do not iron |
A plain circle is for a professional cleaner, not for your machine. The letter names the process. A bar under the circle means a gentler process.
| What the mark looks like | What it means | Usual tag wording |
|---|---|---|
| A plain circle with the letter P. | Dry cleaning is allowed, normal process, with perchloroethylene or hydrocarbon solvents. | Dryclean; professionally dryclean |
| A plain circle with the letter F. | Dry cleaning is allowed with hydrocarbon (petroleum-based) solvents only. | Dryclean, petroleum |
| P or F with a bar under the circle. | A gentler process: the cleaner uses less moisture, mechanical action or heat. | Short cycle; reduced moisture |
| A plain circle with the letter W. | Professional wet cleaning is allowed, normal process. | Professional wet-cleaning |
| W with one bar under the circle, or with two bars. | One bar is a mild wet-cleaning process. Two bars is a very mild one. | Mild or very mild professional wet-cleaning |
| A circle crossed out. | Do not dry clean. | Do not dryclean |
| A circle with the letter W, crossed out. | Do not wet clean. | Do not wet-clean |
Tags differ by country. Japan has used JIS L 0001 since December 1, 2016, and revised it on August 20, 2024. Korea’s KS K 0021 is catalogued as a modified version of ISO 3758 and was revised on December 31, 2024. The United States uses a separate set, ASTM D5489, which the FTC calls similar to the ISO marks but not identical.
We checked every mark on this page against the Japanese standard. We could not read the Korean one, because it is sold, not published, and we did not check the US set. On a tag from those countries, the words printed on the tag win.
These marks are an official labelling system, and GINETEX owns them as trademarks. This page explains them in words. It is not a labelling tool.
The copy tiles below are Unicode stand-ins for notes and lists. They are not the marks themselves.
Closest Unicode stand-ins for the wash-tub care instruction: water, detergent, and machine-wash cues.
The bleach care symbol is a triangle; an empty triangle means bleach is allowed and a crossed one means do not bleach.
Sun, circle, and square shapes echo the tumble-dry and line-dry care icons.
Iron care symbols use one, two, or three dots for low, medium, and high heat. These Unicode dot characters mirror that scale.
On a care tag, a cross through any symbol means do not do it. Pair these with the symbols above to signal do not wash, bleach, dry, or iron.
The marks and their meanings follow the list GINETEX publishes for ISO 3758:2023, the fourth edition from December 2023. We checked each mark against the Consumer Affairs Agency’s page for JIS L 0001 as in force from August 20, 2024. The Korean Standards Network lists KS K 0021 with its revision history. The FTC says the US set is similar, but not identical, to the ISO marks, and the usual wording comes from the US Care Labeling Rule glossary. All read on October 8, 2026.
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