A care label is the permanent label sewn into a garment that tells the owner how to wash, bleach, dry, iron and professionally clean it, in words, symbols or both. In the United States it is mandatory for clothing under the FTC Care Labeling Rule. In the European Union it is not: EU law requires a fiber composition label instead, and care symbols are a voluntary industry system.
For an online apparel seller the difference matters twice. The sewn-in label is the manufacturer's or importer's job, but the product page is yours, and in the EU the fiber composition must be visible before the shopper buys. This guide covers what the US and EU rules require, how to read the five care symbol families, what a listing has to show, and how to store care and fiber data as product fields instead of a photo of a label.
What the FTC Care Labeling Rule requires on US garments
The rule (16 CFR Part 423) applies to manufacturers and importers of textile wearing apparel and of piece goods sold for home sewing. The label must be permanently attached, stay legible for the useful life of the garment, and be easy to find when the product is offered for sale. If packaging hides it, the care information must also appear on the package or a hang tag.
The label must give regular care for ordinary use: either a washing or a drycleaning instruction, plus the details that would cause harm if left out.
- Washing: hand or machine, and a water temperature. If hot water up to 145 °F (63 °C) does no harm, no temperature is needed.
- Drying: machine or another method, with a temperature if high heat would harm the garment.
- Ironing: only if regular ironing is needed or a hot iron would cause damage.
- Bleaching: "No bleach" if all bleaches harm it, "Only non-chlorine bleach, when needed" if chlorine bleach does.
- Warnings: against procedures a consumer could reasonably try that would damage the garment or other items washed with it.
Symbols may replace words only if they come from ASTM D5489-96c, the version the rule names. The manufacturer also needs a reasonable basis for every instruction, such as test results for a dye that bleeds. ISO symbols are not accepted in their place (FTC business guidance). Shoes, gloves and hats are outside the rule, handkerchiefs, belts, suspenders and neckties are excluded, totally reversible garments without pockets need only a temporary label at the point of sale, and hosiery can carry the care information on a hang tag or package.
The rule text was last amended in 2004, according to the amendment citations in the eCFR. On February 28, 2025 the American Apparel and Footwear Association petitioned the FTC to let brands meet the rule with digital labels such as a URL or QR code (AAFA). As of November 3, 2026 we found no FTC decision on the petition in its docket or the Federal Register, and the current eCFR text still requires a permanent label.
EU textile labeling: fiber content is the legal requirement
The EU's Textile Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 does not regulate care instructions at all: it covers fiber names, composition labeling and marking. What the regulation does require is a fiber composition label on every textile product made available on the market, with rules that catch many online sellers out:
- Only the fiber names in Annex I. "Bamboo" is not one of them; fabric made from bamboo pulp is labeled with the fiber that results, typically viscose.
- Name and percentage by weight of every fiber, in descending order (Article 9). Fibers up to 5% of the weight, or up to 15% together, may be grouped as "other fibres" when they are hard to state at manufacture.
- "100%", "pure" or "all" only for a product made of one fiber (Article 7).
- Each component separately when a garment has parts with different fiber content, such as a shell and a main lining (Article 11).
- "Contains non-textile parts of animal origin" when the product has, for example, a leather patch or fur trim (Article 12).
- In the official language or languages of the country where the product is sold (Article 16).
The responsibility sits with the manufacturer, or the importer for products made outside the EU. A distributor that sells under its own name or changes the label counts as the manufacturer (Article 15). That covers a webshop selling private label clothing.
Care symbols in Europe come from the GINETEX system, the basis of the international standard ISO 3758 (current edition 2023). The five pictograms are registered trademarks in most countries and are licensed through GINETEX and its national members (GINETEX). Using them is voluntary, but if you use them, use the licensed set. A revision of the EU textile labeling rules, with digital labels, is on the agenda; when we checked the European Parliament's legislative train in November 2026, the Commission had not yet tabled a proposal (European Parliament).
What an apparel product page must show before checkout
The sewn-in label is invisible to someone shopping online, which is why both systems say something about the listing itself.
- EU: the fiber composition must be "clearly visible to the consumer before the purchase, including in cases where the purchase is made by electronic means" (Article 16 of Regulation 1007/2011). Every component and the animal-origin statement belong on the page too.
- US: an online listing must state whether the product was made in the USA, imported or both (16 CFR 303.34). If the listing names a fiber ("cotton tee"), the full fiber content must appear at least once, though percentages are optional in ads (16 CFR 303.41 and 303.42).
- Care instructions online: neither rule requires them on the product page. Shoppers use them anyway, to decide whether a wool sweater is worth hand washing, so show them.
Inconsistency is the real risk. When the page says "machine washable" and the sewn-in label says "dry clean only", the shopper who checks the label after delivery has a reason to return the item. Product information that does not match the product is a frequent return driver; our e-commerce returns guide covers the rest of the list, and the return rate statistics page collects the sourced benchmarks.
Reading the five care symbol families
ISO 3758 and the GINETEX labels use five basic shapes, always in the same order: washing, bleaching, drying, ironing and professional care. A cross through a symbol means "do not". Lines under a symbol mean a milder treatment, and milder treatments than the label shows are always allowed.
Care symbol families on ISO 3758 and GINETEX labels
| Washing | Washtub | Number in the tub; one or two bars; hand in the tub | Maximum water temperature in °C; mild or very mild machine cycle; hand wash only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bleaching | Triangle | Empty; two diagonal lines; crossed out | Any bleach; oxygen (non-chlorine) bleach only; do not bleach |
| Drying | Square | Circle inside with one or two dots; lines inside | Tumble dry at reduced (about 60 °C) or normal (about 80 °C) temperature; natural drying such as line or flat drying, an oblique line meaning in the shade |
| Ironing | Iron | One, two or three dots | Maximum soleplate 120 °C, 160 °C or 210 °C under ISO 3758:2023 |
| Professional care | Circle | Letter P, F or W; bar underneath | Dry cleaning with the named solvents (P, F) or professional wet cleaning (W); gentler process |
These meanings follow GINETEX's overview of the ISO 3758:2023 symbols (GINETEX). Older labels and appliance guides often quote 110, 150 and 200 °C for the iron dots, the values of earlier editions. US labels must use the ASTM D5489-96c symbols, which the FTC describes as similar to the ISO set but not identical, so do not copy symbols from a European label onto a US one without checking the ASTM chart.
Care and fiber fields to store per product
Most catalogs hold care information as a photo of the label or one line of text in the description. That works for one store in one language and fails everywhere else: Google Shopping wants a material value, a marketplace wants composition per component, a Dutch product page needs "katoen" rather than "cotton". Store it as fields.
Take an illustrative pair of stretch jeans: 98% cotton and 2% elastane, pocket lining 65% polyester and 35% cotton, a leather back patch, machine wash at 30 °C on a mild cycle, no bleach, tumble dry low, iron at two dots, dry cleanable with P solvents.
Care and fiber fields for an illustrative pair of stretch jeans
| fiber_composition_main | Text, structured | 98% cotton, 2% elastane | EU listing and label requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| fiber_composition_lining | Text, structured | 65% polyester, 35% cotton | Article 11: each component separately |
| contains_animal_parts | Yes/No | Yes (leather patch) | Triggers the Article 12 statement |
| material | Select | Cotton | Filter value and Google Shopping material |
| care_wash | Select | Machine 30 °C, mild | Drives symbol and care text |
| care_bleach | Select | Do not bleach | |
| care_dry | Select | Tumble dry low | |
| care_iron | Select | Medium (2 dots) | |
| care_professional | Select | Dry clean P, gentle | |
| country_of_origin | Select | Imported (Portugal) | US origin statement; customs data |
| care_label_image | Image | Photo of the sewn-in label | Proof for checks; never the only source |
Use select fields with a fixed list of values for the care steps. A free-text field ends up holding "30", "30C", "30 degrees" and "cold" for the same instruction, and none of them can drive a symbol or a translation. Our guide to attribute modeling explains when a value list beats free text.
Once the steps are fields, the care text writes itself. The jeans above become "Machine wash at 30 °C on a gentle cycle. Do not bleach. Tumble dry on low heat. Iron at medium heat. Professional dry cleaning (P)." on the product page, the same sentence in Dutch on the Dutch page, and the right symbol codes in a marketplace file. When the factory changes the lining, you change one field and every text follows. In WISEPIM, Template Strings build this kind of short text from attribute values.
The fiber composition string is the one field AI should never invent. It has to come from the manufacturer's specification or a test report. AI is useful one step later: extracting composition from a supplier's description into the right fields, and translating care text into each language with fixed fiber names.
Seven care and fiber errors that slip into apparel catalogs
These come up again and again when apparel catalogs are imported from suppliers or migrated between shop systems.
- Percentages that do not add up to 100. Usually a lost fiber in an import ("95% cotton" with the elastane dropped).
- Trademarks without the generic fiber name. "Lycra" alone is not a fiber name; the EU allows a trademark next to the composition, and US ads must pair a fiber trademark with its generic name, here elastane (spandex in the US).
- Non-Annex names such as "bamboo" or "vegan leather" in the composition field.
- One composition for a lined garment. A coat with a wool shell and a polyester lining needs both.
- A missing animal-origin statement on items with leather patches, fur trims or bone buttons.
- Care text on the page that contradicts the label, often because the description was written for an earlier production run.
- English fiber names on a Dutch, German or French page. The language rule in Article 16 applies to the information the consumer sees.
The last error is a translation problem, so fix it at the source. A machine translation that turns "elastane" into a literal or brand-name variant is wrong for a label. Keep a glossary of fiber and care terms per language and review translated composition text with the same care as a safety warning, as described in our post on machine translation post-editing.
Care and fiber check before an apparel listing goes live
Blocking incomplete garments before they reach a channel
In WISEPIM, fiber composition and each care step can be product attributes with their own type and value list, scoped to the apparel product family. Quality Guard rules then check them before export: a rule can block products in your clothing categories from going to a channel while the composition attribute is empty, or warn when a care field is missing. AI enrichment can fill attributes from the supplier text you already have, and translation keeps fiber names consistent through a translation dictionary of fixed terms.
That keeps the sewn-in label, the product page and every marketplace listing telling the shopper the same thing. For category-specific requirements, the Zalando listing guide and the guide to missing apparel attributes in Merchant Center are the next stop, and PIM for fashion shows the rest of the apparel setup.
