This app scans washing care labels on clothes and tells you what they mean

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What you need to know

  • This app uses your iPhone's camera to scan the labels on your clothes before telling you what the icons mean.
  • You'll never wonder what that little logo means again.

Sometimes apps come across my radar that I didn't know that I needed — but only because I didn't know they existed. Laundry Lens is the prime example of that because it takes the often confusing laundry care icons from the labels on your clothes and turns them into something mere mortals can understand.

It's all pretty simple, really. Point your iPhone at the care label on your clothes and the app will tell you how to wash them. That's it. That's the app. And it's genius.

Laundry Lens is the perfect companion for doing the laundry. Just point your camera at a care label and you will be presented to the proper instructions on how to take care of your clothes and garments. By swiping up, you can also look up the laundry symbols manually and discover many others. Laundry Lens includes a full list of symbols, from washing to ironing, and even professional ones, so you know exactly what type of care your laundry requires.

You can download Laundry Lens from the App Store now. It's free and according to the App Store page, it doesn't collect any of your data either. Which is good — I don't need anyone else knowing about my bright pink bunny outfit!

You won't need a super modern iPhone for this to work, although the great cameras on iPhone 12 will obviously work best. Don't have an iPhone yet? You can use an iPad! Or better yet, pick up one of these iPhone deals instead!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.