Tumble dryer symbols explained

Tumble dryers save us time, effort and the sight of socks hanging on our radiators. If you haven’t used a tumble dryer before though, they can be a bit of a mystery. What can and can’t be tumble dried? Where are the tumble dryer symbols, and what do they mean? These are the questions we’re going to answer now.

A square with a circle in it is the symbol on your clothes that relates to tumble drying. Each variation of that symbol has a different meaning.

The other symbols you’ll often see on clothes labels are:

• A tub symbol, which relates to washing
• A triangle symbol, about bleaching
• An iron symbol, about ironing
• A circle symbol, about dry cleaning

You can sort washed clothes into two main piles:

• Things that can be tumble dried
• Things that need to go on a clothesline or dried flat

Then you need to check which programme to use for the items in the first pile. Let’s take a look at the common tumble dryer symbols you’ll find on the labels.

Programmes, settings and symbols vary across tumble dryer models. Some models have text with few or no symbols, while others have no writing at all. Here we’ll cover the common symbols on most tumble dryers.