Laundry Gets More Challenging Symbols To Replace Written Care Labels

You now have seven months to start memorizing more than two dozen symbols that indicate how to clean your clothes.

The Federal Trade Commission voted 5-0 on Monday to allow garment makers the option of using symbols in clothing tags in place of words explaining care and cleaning instructions.

The pictographs will be used starting about July 1. For the first 18 months, written care instructions will also be required for clothing sold in the United States. After that, manufacturers will be free to phase out the words entirely, relying on only the symbols.

An assortment of circles, squares, triangles and lines will indicate water temperature, drying methods and other instructions.

The decision comes after 38 clothing companies and clothing trade associations petitioned the Federal Trade Commission in 1994 for the move.

Their reason? To save money.

They wanted to avoid the expense of translating washing instructions into different languages for their foreign customers, said Elaine Kolish, a Federal Trade Commission spokeswoman.

Of particular concern are Mexico and French-speaking Canada, both part of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The charts are expected to appear on laundry detergent boxes, bleach bottles, on posters at laundromats and inside new washing machines.

A national education campaign is expected to begin late next month, Kolish said.

“A lot of symbols are easy to understand, but they’re not intuitive,” Kolish said.

“But if someone explains it to you it’s easy. They will get it. It will be a non-issue in six months.”