Care labels decoded, and why the label is not the law in Canada
Updated September 2026 · Sam’s Menswear editorial team
Care symbols were designed so a label could speak every language at once. The side effect is that most people cannot read any of it, and treat the whole strip as a suggestion.
It is worth ten minutes. Here is the entire system, and one thing about Canadian labels that almost nobody knows.
The part nobody tells you: in Canada the care label is voluntary
Under the Textile Labelling Act, a garment sold in Canada must carry two things: the fibre content (the generic name of every fibre making up 5% or more of the fabric) and the dealer’s identity, meaning the name and postal address of the responsible business, or a registered dealer number.
Care instructions are not on that list. Care labelling in Canada follows a voluntary standard, CAN/CGSB-86.1, which the Competition Bureau leaves to each business to adopt. The symbols themselves are harmonised with the ISO and North American systems, which is why they look the same as the ones on a shirt bought in Milan.
Two practical consequences:
- A garment with no care label is not defective or counterfeit. Plenty of tailored clothing carries none, including a lot of what comes off a tailor’s bench.
- The fibre content is the instruction you can actually rely on, because it is the part the law requires and the part that cannot really be fudged. “100% wool” tells you more than “dry clean only” does, and the two sometimes disagree. When they do, read the cloth and treat the symbols as the manufacturer’s opinion.
Five shapes, and that is the whole language
Every symbol you will ever see is one of five shapes, with modifiers.
| Shape | What it governs |
|---|---|
| Tub of water | Washing |
| Triangle | Bleaching |
| Square | Drying |
| Iron | Ironing |
| Circle | Professional cleaning (dry-clean or wet-clean) |
And three modifiers that work the same way on all of them:
- A cross through the symbol means do not do this. It is the only symbol you must obey without judgement.
- Dots mean temperature. More dots, more heat.
- Bars underneath mean be gentler. One bar is a mild or permanent-press cycle, two bars is very mild or delicate.
The tub: washing
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Plain tub | Machine wash, normal |
| Tub with a number (30, 40, 50, 60, 95) | Wash at or below that temperature in °C |
| Tub with dots | The same scale in dots: 1 = 30°C, 2 = 40°C, 3 = 50°C, 4 = 60°C, 5 = 70°C, 6 = 95°C |
| Tub with one bar underneath | Permanent press: reduced agitation and spin |
| Tub with two bars | Delicate: minimum agitation |
| Tub with a hand in it | Hand wash only, gently, and not hot |
| Tub crossed out | Do not wash. Water is not the method for this garment |
| Twisted shape crossed out | Do not wring |
For tailored shirting, 30 to 40°C with a normal cycle is the useful range, and the shirt routine covers the rest.
The triangle: bleach
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Empty triangle | Any bleach may be used |
| Triangle with two diagonal lines | Non-chlorine (oxygen) bleach only |
| Triangle crossed out | No bleach of any kind |
On a white cotton shirt, treat an empty triangle as permission you should decline. Chlorine bleach yellows and weakens cotton over time, and oxygen bleach does the job without the damage.
The square: drying
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Square with a circle inside | Tumble dry |
| Circle with one dot | Low heat |
| Circle with two dots | Medium heat |
| Circle with three dots | High heat |
| Circle filled in solid | Tumble dry, no heat (air only) |
| Circle in square, crossed out | Do not tumble dry |
| Square with one horizontal line | Dry flat. This is the one for knitwear |
| Square with a vertical line | Line dry |
| Square with three vertical lines | Drip dry: hang it soaking and do not wring |
| Diagonal line in the top corner | Dry in the shade, away from direct sun |
| Square crossed out | Do not dry |
The iron
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Iron with one dot | Low, about 110°C. Synthetics, and anything you are unsure about |
| Iron with two dots | Medium, about 150°C. Wool and silk |
| Iron with three dots | High, about 200°C. Cotton and linen |
| Iron with crossed-out steam lines | Do not steam |
| Iron crossed out | Do not iron |
A tailoring note the label will not give you: even when the iron symbol permits it, a hot iron placed directly on wool leaves shine. Use a pressing cloth between the iron and the fabric, or steam instead.
The circle: professional cleaning
The circle is for the cleaner, not for you, and the letters inside tell them which solvent to use.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Plain circle | Dry-clean |
| A | Any solvent |
| P | Perchloroethylene and hydrocarbon solvents |
| F | Flammable hydrocarbon solvent only, gentler than P |
| W | Professional wet cleaning: water-based, done by a professional machine |
| A bar under any circle | Reduced process: lower heat, less mechanical action |
| Circle crossed out | Do not dry-clean |
| W crossed out | Do not wet-clean |
Hand the garment over with the label showing and let the counter read it. A cleaner who handles tailored clothing will look for it; one who does not is the wrong cleaner for your suit.
”Dry clean” and “dry clean only” are not the same thing
Dry clean is a recommendation: the safest method the maker will vouch for.
Dry clean only is a warning: something in the garment (the cloth, the lining, the canvas, the trims) will be damaged by water.
Neither means often. A label telling you how to clean a suit says nothing about how frequently, and the honest answer is far less than most men assume. Two or three times a year is plenty for a suit in regular rotation, for the reasons set out in dry-clean less.
When there is no label at all
This is common on bespoke and made-to-measure garments, and on anything altered enough that the original label has gone.
Then you do what a tailor does: identify the cloth and care for the fibre. Ask whoever made it what the cloth is and write it down somewhere you will find it. Wool, linen, cotton, silk and the blends each want something different, and care by cloth is the whole map.
Sources. Fibre content and dealer identity requirements: Competition Bureau Canada, textile labelling requirements and the Textile Labelling Act. Voluntary care labelling standard: CAN/CGSB-86.1, Care Labelling of Textiles, Canadian General Standards Board. Checked September 2026.