What do washing machine symbols mean?
Understanding the washing instruction symbols on your clothing is crucial to ensure that you are caring for your laundry correctly. By carefully following the care instructions and washing machine symbols on your garments, you can prolong the life of your clothing, maintaining the quality of your items for longer. To help you understand more, we have pulled together this handy article and graphic explaining the most common symbols for washing clothing.
What do washing symbols on clothes mean?
The washing symbols on your clothes indicate what you need to know to take care of your garments. Recognising these symbols, particularly the machine washable symbol, helps you understand whether an item can be laundered in the washing machine or requires handwashing.
It is important to note that not everything is machine washable, even if it looks it. Checking for a machine washable symbol is therefore important. Your shoes, for example, will change depending on the manufacturer.
To learn how and when to machine wash your shoes, click here to explore a detailed guide. Understanding this process can provide valuable insight into deciphering laundry symbols for footwear in your washing machine.
Washing machine symbols meaning
Understanding the five washing machine symbols on your clothing labels is essential for proper garment care. However, deciphering their meanings can sometimes be challenging. This guide aims to explain the significance of these symbols, helping you care for your garments with confidence.
Washing symbols
Washing 40c
The symbol for washing clothes is typically shown as a bucket or tub of water. The number inside the bucket indicates the maximum temperature at which the garment can be washed. For example, if the number inside the bucket is 40, it means that the garment can be washed at a maximum of 40 degrees Celsius.
Bleaching Symbol
Bleach
This symbol is represented by a triangle. If there is nothing inside the triangle, you can use any type of bleach on the garment. If there is a cross through the triangle, it means that you cannot use any bleach on the garment.
To easily remember, try thinking of bleach as a hazard sign. Unlike ironing, washing, and drying, this symbol is important for knowing whether you can safely use strong products, such as bleach, on your clothing or not.
Ironing Symbol
Iron
This symbol shows an iron. The number of dots inside the iron indicates the maximum temperature that can be used to iron the garment. For example, if there are three dots, you can use a maximum temperature of 200 degrees Celsius to iron the garment.
Drying Symbol
Dry
This symbol is represented by a square. If there is nothing inside the square, it means that you can tumble dry the garment on any heat setting. If there is a circle inside the square, it means that you can tumble dry the garment but only on a low heat setting. If there is a cross through the square, it means that the garment cannot be tumble dried.
Dry Cleaning Symbol
Dry Cleaning
This symbol shows a circle. If there is nothing inside the circle, it means that the garment can be dry cleaned with any solvent. If there is a letter inside the circle, it means that a specific solvent should be used. For example, the letter 'P' means that only perchloroethylene should be used.
Understanding the washing machine icons when doing your laundry is an essential aspect of taking care of your clothes. By following the washing instruction symbols on the labels, you can prevent your garments from shrinking, fading, or losing their shape. Before selecting a wash cycle, always check the labels on your clothes and follow the signs for washing clothes to keep your items in the best possible condition.
How to organise a fridge
One of the best ways to reduce food waste is to ensure that your fridge is organised correctly. By organising your fridge effectively, you’ll be able to see everything you have purchased, meaning you’ll know what needs eating and when!
To help you keep your food fresher for longer, we’ve pulled together a handy guide that explains how to organise your fridge correctly. You remember playing Tetris? It’s a bit like that, but with your weekly shop.
Why is fridge organisation important?
It is important to know how to organise your refrigerator properly. By understanding how a fridge should be organised, you can ensure your food is kept food fresher for longer, whilst retaining the quality of your groceries. Our range of innovative fridges and fridge freezers are designed with dedicated zones to help you correctly arrange your fridge, such as large salad crisper drawers, chrome wire wine racks, and chiller compartments. In addition to this, our range of fridges feature advanced technologies designed to keep your food fresher for longer, like HarvestFresh™, which preserves the vitamins in your fresh fruit and veg in the crisper drawer.
How to arrange your fridge
When you’ve done your weekly shop and your bags are bulging with cheese, meat, and veg, you’re inevitably faced with the challenge of trying to juggle and squeeze all those goodies into the fridge.
To help you answer the age-old question of ‘how should a fridge be organised’, we’ve pulled together our top fridge organisation tips. Before we get started, it is worth noting that our recommendations are based on standard fridges and that recommendations will vary depending on what size and function your fridge are used for (don’t go reorganising the office fridge just to cram in your shopping!). For a standard fridge, here are our suggestions on how to organise a fridge at home:
How to organise the top of a fridge
The top shelf is the part of the fridge that is not as cold, so this is the best place to put foods that don’t need to be kept super chilled, such as food that is already cooked. This part of the fridge is ideal for food such as deli meats and other snacks. Some sweeter treats like trifles other desserts will be happy up top too.
How to organise fridge shelves
As you move down the fridge, temperatures get cooler. The middle section of your fridge is a great place for any dairy products, ready-to-eat foods and leftovers – like that Saturday night pizza.
Wondering how to organise drinks in your fridge? If you’ve still got some room on the middle shelves this is where you should place your chilled drinks, ideally near the centre. Alternatively, if you have a fridge freezer with a wine rack, the middle shelf is where the rack should sit for optimum chilling. A selection of Beko’s fridges and fridge freezers feature dedicated wine racks, offering a safe and convenient place to store your wine bottles and soft drinks.
How to organise the bottom of your fridge
The bottom shelf of the fridge is the coldest part, which means food placed here really has its freshness locked in, preventing any dripping, and keeping bacteria at bay. This makes it the ideal place to store your fussier ingredients, like raw meat and fish. A selection of our fridges and fridge freezers feature dedicated chiller compartments that offer a hygienic and perfectly suited environment for your meat, fish, and dairy products. By maintaining a temperature at around 0 degrees Celsius, this innovative compartment helps keep food fresher for longer.
How to organise vegetables in a fridge
The crisper drawer provides ideal conditions for preserving vegetables and fruits. Our refrigerators are actually designed to keep your food fresher for longer thanks to innovative technology like HarvestFreshTM, which helps you to enjoy a healthier lifestyle, with more nutritious meals than ever. Using three-colour light technology, HarvestFres™ mimics the sun’s natural 24-hour light cycle, preserving the vitamins in your fruit and veg for up to five additional days.
Top tip: To keep your vegetables fresher for longer, try to keep your vegetables separate and in the crisper drawer as much as possible! Separate avocados, bananas, tomatoes, and other ripening fruits from the rest of your produce, as these fruits produce ethylene, which speeds up the ripening of other foods, causing rot.
How to organise a fridge door
And last, but not least, your fridge doors are really the place for anything that doesn’t spoil easily or needs to be kept upright – think open sauce bottles, jams, fruit juices and, definitely your eggs (if you have a holder) – as those are known for their tendency to roll off the shelf when you least expect it!
