Years ago, laundry tags on clothes read "Machine wash warm," et cetera. In today's global economy, that's been replaced with a system of pictograms so bewildering you need a thorough visual guide to understand them all.

Image credit: Maids.com

You can buy a cheap magnetic guide to stick to your washing machine (though that doesn't seem very ergonomic to me; where are you going to stick it in a place that's easy to read, on the inside of the lid?).

You can buy pricey framed laundry guides from one of the big box stores to hang on the wall of your laundry room.

You can also download a free app called Laundry Lens that can scan and explain the icons.

Or you could just screenshot a guide and print it out yourself. With the money you've saved, you can splash out on some fancy thumbtacks to pin it to the wall.