Machine wash, 40°C
The item can be washed in water up to 40°C (104°F) on a normal cycle.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The number in the washtub is the highest water temperature allowed, in degrees Celsius, and the tub symbol covers washing by machine and by hand. No bar under the tub means the normal cycle. The same tub with one bar underneath calls for a mild cycle, and with two bars a very mild one.
Where a garment's own label or its manufacturer says otherwise, that takes precedence.
Differences by country or standard
The Canadian government's guide, based on the Canadian care labelling standard, marks water temperature with dots in the tub instead of a number: one dot for 30°C, two for 40°C, four for 60°C. The temperature limits are the same.
Why dots and numbers, not words
Words such as “warm” and “hot” can stand for different temperatures in different countries, the European Commission pointed out when the US Federal Trade Commission reviewed its care labelling rule in the 1990s. Industry Canada gave an example: “warm” was defined as 50°C in the Canadian system and as at most 43°C in the United States. ASTM, which sets the US care symbols, took the words out of its chart, so the number of dots in the tub is read as a temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Read next
- Next in Laundry symbolsMachine wash, 60°CThe item can be washed in water up to 60°C (140°F) on a normal cycle.
- The same shape in Accessibility symbolsAudio description symbol (AD)AD stands for audio description: a narrator describes what is happening on screen or on stage in the pauses between the dialogue, for people who are blind or have low vision.
More laundry symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with curves and waves or letters and numbers.
Sources
- Textiles — Care labelling code using symbols, ISO 3758, ISO, Abstract (ISO 3758:2023)
- Standard Guide for Care Symbols for Care Instructions on Textile Products, ASTM D5489, ASTM International, section 4.6 (ASTM D5489-25)
- Textile Care Symbols, GINETEX, the International Association for Textile Care Labelling, p. 4
- Guide to Apparel and Textile Care Symbols, CAN/CGSB-86.1-2003, Office of Consumer Affairs, Government of Canada, p. 2
- Trade Regulation Rule on Care Labeling of Textile Wearing Apparel and Certain Piece Goods (interim rule, 1997), 62 FR 5724, 6 February 1997, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Register (govinfo.gov)
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 24, 2026. How we research
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