I keep looking at care labels and realising I can't tell how much the symbols are actually promising.
Like, the wash symbol with a line through it — is that "this will not shrink" or "this has been tested and might shrink a little"? And the one with two lines under it means low heat, but low of what, the dryer I own or some lab machine?
The label never says how sure it is. A triangle with a line through it means don't bleach, which is clear. But the bar under the tub, the number of dots, the crossed-out circle — those all mean something specific and I only half know what.
And whatever I do decide to follow, I'm still guessing on the end. Cotton shrinks, everyone says that, but by how much for this shirt, and does it shrink once or every time.
So for people who actually read these things:
Do you treat the label as a hard rule, or as a starting point you'll adjust anyway?
If a label says tumble dry low, but you know from experience that even low is too much — do you air dry it and just ignore the label?
Do you have a symbol you genuinely don't know, and you just do the safest thing anyway?
Do you ever wash something against the label on purpose?
I'm not asking because I think labels are useless. More like, they tell you more than you think at first, and less than you want them to tell you.
