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Care labelling

On most garment ranges - regardless of country of origin - care labelling is applied as an afterthought. Quality varies accordingly. Whilst several systems exist worldwide, most international suppliers aim to follow International Standard ISO 3758. This has five main symbols; a sixth (wet cleaning) is due to be added shortly. A major shortcoming of most amateur care labels is that garments thought unlikely to survive washing are simply labelled for dry-cleaning, regardless of whether they are suitable for dry-cleaning or not.

Some designers use the ‘do not wash’ symbol even on washable items as effective protection against consumer complaints about washing-related garment damage. However, in many cases, ‘dry-clean only’ garments - such as certain designer polyester ranges - can safely be washed with care. This approach is taken to extremes in a designer range of silk shirts currently marketed at over EUR 150 carrying a care label prohibiting either washing or dry-cleaning.

Dry-cleaning care symbols are rather unsophisticated, usually consisting of a circle to show that dry-cleaning is recommended with a letter specifying the types of solvent that can be used. For example, "P" in a circle allows use of perchloroethylene and hydrocarbon (and also white spirit and fluorocarbon where these are still used.) "F" in a circle effectively permits only hydrocarbon, although in some countries stocks of fluorocarbon remain for older garments which require it.

A key problem is posed by the symbol of a circle with a bar beneath it. This is not widely used and is often misunderstood. The bar shows that the garment is not suitable for ‘coin-operated’ dry-cleaning and may require restrictions on moisture, mechanical action, solvent temperature or drying temperature. These can be essential to avoid damage, but may reduce the quality of the end result.

In the case of consumer complaints, responsibility for any garment damage during cleaning hinges on whether the damage was due to incorrect labelling or incomplete understanding of the label by the cleaner. Labelling with fibre content provides valuable information to the cleaner. However, some garments are still sold with no such label, and others carry incomplete or inaccurate information.