The words on the laundry door
Last reviewed: August 6, 2026
Twenty-five terms you'll meet on a machine's dial, a shop's price list or a sign in a language you don't read — in plain language, with what each one actually means for your clothes.
On the machine
The words and settings on a washing machine, whichever country it is in.
- The rotating basket your clothes go in, and the unit machines are sized by. An 8 kg drum is standard in a laundromat and holds roughly a week of clothes for two people. Fill it about two-thirds — packed tight, clothes don't move and don't get clean.
- How fast the drum spins at the end, in revolutions per minute. Higher means drier clothes and a shorter drying time, but more creasing and more stress on the fabric. 1200 rpm is a normal setting; delicate programmes drop to 400–600.
- A programme with lots of water, almost no tumbling and a slow spin. Sometimes labelled "wool", "hand wash" or "gentle". This is what the two-bar care symbol is asking for.
- A programme that saves energy by washing longer at a lower temperature. It is the default on most modern European machines and can run for two or three hours — which is fine overnight and a problem at 22:00.
- A short cycle, typically 15 to 45 minutes, meant for lightly worn clothes and small loads. For a mid-trip refresh it is almost always the right choice, and it is the setting to hunt for on an unfamiliar dial.
- An extra short wash before the main one, for genuinely dirty laundry. It needs detergent in a separate compartment, adds time, and is of no use to a traveller.
- The pull-out tray on the front, usually with three compartments: prewash, main wash, and a smaller one marked with a flower or a star for fabric softener. Powder and liquid go in the main compartment; pods go straight into the drum.
What the shop is selling
The service names on a price list, and where the money actually goes.
- A shop washes, dries and folds your laundry, priced by weight. The standard drop-off service worldwide. Ironing is sometimes included and sometimes an extra line — worth asking.
- The same thing, named after how it's priced. Your bag goes on a scale and you pay per kilogram, usually with a minimum of around 3 kg. Ubiquitous in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Latin America.
- You operate the machines yourself and pay per cycle. Cheaper than a drop-off service and it costs you the two hours instead. Also called coin laundry, whether or not it still takes coins.
- Cleaning with a chemical solvent instead of water, for suits, coats and structured garments. It is not "washing without water damage" — it is a different process, roughly double the price, and the wrong choice for a t-shirt.
- A professional water-based process for garments that would normally be dry-cleaned, using controlled machines and specialist detergents. Marked with a W on the care label.
- Same-day rather than next-day return, at a surcharge of roughly 50 to 100%. Worth it against a genuine deadline and rarely otherwise.
- The printed form in a hotel wardrobe where you write down each garment and its quantity. It doubles as the price list, and reading it before you fill the bag is what stops a surprise at checkout.
What goes in the water
The consumables, including the two formats that are genuinely better for travel.
- The soap itself, as liquid, powder, pods or sheets. Use less than feels right: excess detergent doesn't clean better, it just fails to rinse out and leaves clothes stiff.
- Thin dissolvable strips of concentrated detergent. The traveller's format: a month's worth weighs a few grams, it can't leak, and it isn't a liquid, so it stays out of the airport liquids bag entirely.
- Pre-measured detergent in a dissolving film. Convenient in a machine, useless in a sink — they're dosed for a full drum — and they must go in the drum itself, not the drawer.
- An optional rinse additive that coats fibres to make them feel soft. It also reduces how well technical fabrics wick moisture, so skip it for sportswear and merino. Goes in the drawer compartment marked with a flower.
- A pre-treatment applied to the mark before washing. Most colour-safe ones are oxygen-based, so check the garment's bleach triangle first — a "do not bleach" label rules many of them out.
- A colour-safe whitener, often sold as "oxi" powder. It is what the two-lines-in-a-triangle symbol permits, as distinct from household chlorine bleach, which the same symbol forbids.
The word on the door
Searching in English is why people conclude a city has no laundromat. These are the words that actually find one.
- British English for a self-service laundry. "Laundromat" is understood but returns fewer results on a map search in the UK and Ireland.
- German. Used across Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. "Waschsalon" or "SB-Waschsalon" — the SB is Selbstbedienung, self-service.
- Spanish. "Lavandería" alone is often a drop-off shop; adding "automática" or "autoservicio" finds the self-service ones. In Italy, look for "lavanderia a gettoni".
- French. Common on high streets across France, Belgium and francophone Switzerland, usually unstaffed with a central payment terminal.
- The usual term in Japan and much of North America. Japanese coin laundries are notably clean, often 24-hour, and many have machines that wash and dry in one cycle without moving the clothes.