Machine wash, 40°C, mild
The item can be washed in water up to 40°C (104°F) on a mild cycle.
Easily confused with
How to read it
One bar under the washtub asks for a gentler wash than the normal cycle: less mechanical action, as GINETEX describes it for fine laundry such as modal, viscose and synthetic fibres. The number is the highest water temperature allowed, in degrees Celsius. Without the bar the normal cycle is allowed; with two bars the wash is very mild.
Also searched as: permanent press.
Where a garment's own label or its manufacturer says otherwise, that takes precedence.
Differences by country or standard
The international guide from GINETEX, the body behind the care symbols, names the settings by how gentle they are: one bar is a mild process and two bars a very mild process. The Canadian government's guide names the same settings after washing-machine cycles: one bar is permanent press and two bars delicate or gentle.
When the United States first allowed care symbols in place of words, in 1997, the Federal Trade Commission let manufacturers give permanent press or gentle cycle in words instead of bars, for anyone who thought the underlining might confuse Canadian or Mexican consumers, whose symbol systems didn't use it.
Read next
- Next in Laundry symbolsMachine wash, 30°C, very mildThe item can be washed in water up to 30°C (86°F) on a very mild cycle.
- The same shape in Asian flagsFlag of IranIran’s flag has three equal stripes of green, white and red, with the national emblem in red in the centre and the words “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”) written 22 times in white along the edges of the green and the red. Iran’s constitution names the colours, the emblem and the motto but gives them no meaning; the art historian Kimia Maleki writes that the 22 marks the day the revolution of 1979 won, the 22nd day of the 11th month of the Iranian calendar.
More laundry symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with curves and waves, letters and numbers or lines.
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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