--- title: "Laundry Symbols & Care Labels review: an offline scanner for every ISO care symbol" author: "Lubor Šimůnek" date: 2026-09-17 modified: 2026-10-30 language: "en" url: "https://appstoryo.com/en/apps/laundry-symbols-care-labels-review-2026" publisher: "AppStoryo (lapnito.cz s.r.o.)" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" category: "Productivity" rating: 5 # out of 5 keywords: ["Productivity", "Laundry Symbols & Care Labels", "app review", "AppStoryo"] --- # Laundry Symbols & Care Labels review: an offline scanner for every ISO care symbol > A free Android app that scans a clothing care label and explains all 44 ISO care symbols offline, with no account, no ads and no data collected. Laundry Symbols & Care Labels is a free Android app that reads the care label sewn into a garment through your phone camera and explains all 44 ISO care symbols in plain language. It runs offline, collects no data, and is built for anyone who has ever guessed at a wash tub icon. Android only. *Disclosure: AppStoryo is operated by the studio that develops Laundry Symbols & Care Labels. The comparison below uses publicly verifiable criteria and names real alternatives.* ## What is Laundry Symbols & Care Labels, and what does it actually do? Laundry Symbols & Care Labels turns the strip of pictograms inside your collar into sentences you can act on. Point the camera at the label and the app names each symbol and the instruction behind it. You can also browse the whole library by hand. Three features go beyond a lookup chart. My Closet stores a garment with its complete care profile, so you never re-read the same label twice. Load sorting splits today's pile into compatible washes, naming the specific conflict each time. A daily five-question quiz and four written care guides handle the learning side. The Google Play listing was updated on 24 August 2026 and sits in House & Home, free and ad-free. [Install Laundry Symbols on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomas.laundry_symbols). ## How does scanning a care label with the camera work? The app asks for the camera only when it needs it, and the current release fixed the case where an early refusal used to lock you out: say no first and you can still grant access later without leaving the app. If the phone has no usable camera, or you would rather not grant the permission, hand the app a photo of the label instead and it is read the same way. That path uses Android's system photo picker, which gives an app [access to only the images you select rather than your whole media library](https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/photopicker), and falls back to the ACTION\_OPEN\_DOCUMENT intent on devices older than Android 4.4 (API level 19). ## Which care symbols does the app cover, and which standard are they from? All 44 of them, and they come from ISO 3758, the international care labelling code. GINETEX, the body that owns the symbols, records that [ISO 3758:2023 was published on 6 December 2023 and cancels and replaces ISO 3758:2012](https://www.ginetex.net/). The five families are always the same shapes: tub for washing, triangle for bleaching, square for drying, iron for ironing, circle for professional cleaning. The numbers inside the tub are wash temperatures, and GINETEX's consumer index spells out what each one expects of you: a [95 °C boiling wash wants a full drum, while a 40 °C very mild wash for machine-washable wool wants the drum substantially under-filled](https://clevercare.info/care-symbols-index/). One regional catch matters. In the United States, care labelling is governed by [16 CFR Part 423, which permits the ASTM D5489-96c symbol system to be used in lieu of written terms](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-423), so an American garment may carry words where a European one carries pictograms. The [FTC's guidance on the Care Labeling Rule](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/clothes-captioning-complying-care-labeling-rule) is the plain reading of that. ## How private is Laundry Symbols & Care Labels? The Google Play listing declares no data collected and no data shared with third parties. Those are not marketing lines — they are answers to a [form every developer must complete in Play Console](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/10787469), shown before you install. The app requests no account, shows no ads, and the scanner works in airplane mode. The published description puts it in one sentence: > No account, no ads, no tracking. Everything runs on your device — the scanner works even without an internet connection. The consequence is that your closet stays a local file. Nothing about the clothes you own is uploaded, which also means there is no server-side backup if you lose the phone. [Laundry Symbols & Care Labels is free on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomas.laundry_symbols). ## Which app should you actually use? ### Choose Laundry Pro - care symbols if you want the most road-tested option - The only app here with a public track record: 4.7 stars from 70 reviews and 10,000+ downloads, published by Vladimir Makarov in Books & Reference. - It saves a chosen set of symbols as a single "apparel", years ahead of everyone else's closet feature. - The costs are real: last updated 24 October 2018, it carries ads, and its Data safety entry says it may share device or other IDs with third parties. ### Choose Laundry Symbols: Care Guide if you want to search by what the symbol looks like - Bicycle Labs ships an AI-powered tag scanner plus a searchable symbol table, updated 27 June 2026. - Its search works by shape or by what you are trying to do, which is faster when you cannot describe the pictogram. - It declares no data collected and no data shared, in the same House & Home category, but its listing shows 10+ downloads. ### Choose Laundry Symbols — Care Guide if you refuse to grant a camera permission - Sluk.com's version requests no permissions at all and works entirely offline, updated 30 July 2026. - There is no scanner, by design: you browse a grid and filter by washing, bleaching, drying, ironing or professional cleaning. - It ships in English and Danish only — a hard stop for most of the world. ### Choose Laundry Symbols & Care Labels if the label is only half the problem - The only one of the four that both scans a label and does something with the answer: it saves the garment and sorts a pile into compatible loads, naming each conflict. - The daily five-question quiz and four care guides mean you eventually stop needing it. - No data collected, no data shared, no ads, no account, updated 24 August 2026 — but Android only, with 0+ downloads and no user verdict yet. ## When is Laundry Symbols & Care Labels the wrong tool? If you own an iPhone, it is the wrong tool today: there is no App Store version, and the Google Play listing is the only place it exists. If you want strangers' verdicts first, it is also wrong — the listing shows 0+ downloads and no public rating, while Laundry Pro - care symbols has been accumulating 4.7 stars since 2018. It will not rescue a label faded past legibility, and it is not a stain-removal database: it explains what the manufacturer permits, not how to get red wine out of linen. And because nothing is uploaded, a lost phone means a lost closet. ## Frequently asked questions about laundry care symbols ### Is Laundry Symbols & Care Labels free? Yes. The Google Play listing shows no price, no ads and no subscription, and the description states there is no account to create. Everything named on the listing is included: the camera scanner, the full 44-symbol library, My Closet, load sorting, the daily five-question quiz and the four written care guides. There is no trial period to run out and nothing is gated behind a purchase. ### Does the app work without an internet connection? Yes. The published description says the scanner works even without an internet connection, and the Play listing declares no data collected and no data shared with third parties. Decoding happens on the phone itself, which is why airplane mode changes nothing about how quickly it reads a label. The same design means no server copy of your closet exists, so backups are your responsibility. ### How many laundry symbols are there? The app covers 44 symbols drawn from ISO 3758, the international care labelling code, arranged in five families: the wash tub for washing, the triangle for bleaching, the square for drying, the iron for ironing and the circle for professional cleaning. The current edition, ISO 3758:2023, was published on 6 December 2023 and replaced the 2012 text, so an older label still reads correctly. ### Why does my American clothing label use words instead of symbols? Because United States law allows both. Under 16 CFR Part 423 the ASTM D5489-96c symbol system may be used in lieu of written terms, or combined with them, provided the label still meets the rule's requirements. European labels lean on ISO 3758 pictograms instead. A garment sold in both markets often carries two label variants, which is why the same shirt can look different in two countries. ### Do I have to give the app camera access? No. If you decline the permission, or the device has no usable camera, you can hand the app a photo of the care label instead and it is processed identically. Android's system photo picker gives an app only the images you select rather than your whole gallery, so the least-permission route is fully supported. The current release also lets you grant the camera later without leaving the app. ### What does the number inside the wash tub mean? It is the maximum wash temperature in degrees Celsius. GINETEX's consumer index goes further than the number itself: a 95 °C boiling wash expects a completely full drum and a normal cycle, while a 40 °C very mild wash for machine-washable wool expects the drum substantially under-filled and the spin kept short. Same tub, same digits, very different machine behaviour. ### Is there an iPhone version of the app? Not at the moment. Laundry Symbols & Care Labels is published on Google Play only, so any iPhone guide that links you to an App Store page for it is linking to something that does not exist. The two closest alternatives named above, Laundry Symbols: Care Guide and Laundry Symbols — Care Guide, are Android listings as well, so an iPhone owner has to look outside this comparison. ### Can the app sort my washing into loads for me? It sorts the garments you have saved into compatible loads and names the conflict whenever it separates two items — a 30 °C wool item and a 60 °C cotton one, for instance. It does not know what is physically in your basket, so the sorting is only ever as good as what you put into My Closet first, and scanning a label takes seconds. [Get Laundry Symbols on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tomas.laundry_symbols). ## Pros - Scans a care label with the camera and explains it in plain sentences - All 44 ISO 3758 care symbols covered, browsable without the camera - Declares no data collected and no data shared on Google Play - My Closet stores a garment's full care profile so you read a label once - Load sorting names the specific conflict every time it splits two items - Photo-picker fallback means the camera permission is genuinely optional - Free, no ads, no subscription, no account, works in airplane mode ## Cons - Android only — there is no App Store version - 0+ downloads and no public rating, so no user verdict yet - Nothing is uploaded, so a lost phone means a lost closet - Not a stain-removal guide: it explains permissions, not remedies - Cannot help with a label that has faded past legibility ## Summary A free Android app that does the whole job a care label starts: the camera reads the pictograms, the app says what they mean in sentences, and My Closet keeps the answer so you never decode the same garment twice. Load sorting is the part no rival matches — it splits a pile into compatible washes and names the conflict each time. All 44 ISO 3758 symbols are covered, the Play listing declares no data collected and no data shared, and the scanner runs with the phone offline. The camera permission is optional: hand it a photo instead and the result is identical. Against it: Android only, 0+ downloads, no public rating, and no server-side backup of the closet you build. --- Source: License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Cite as: Lubor Šimůnek (2026). Laundry Symbols & Care Labels review: an offline scanner for every ISO care symbol. AppStoryo, lapnito.cz s.r.o. https://appstoryo.com/en/apps/laundry-symbols-care-labels-review-2026