NEW, VOLUNTARY SYMBOLS ON CLOTHING CARE LABELS

Clothing and laundry appliance manufacturers, retailers, detergent and bleach companies and other industry members will be unfolding a basket full of new educational materials for consumers. The industry will be joining FTC to unveil their contributions to " FTC Project CLEAN "--Care Labeling Education and Awareness Network--a campaign to educate consumers about the new, voluntary symbols that can start appearing on clothing care labels beginning July 1, 1997. The symbols, which show consumers how to safely launder or clean their clothing, will be permitted on care labels so long as the manufacturers include with the garments a written explanation of what the symbols mean for the first 18 months they are in use. In granting the industry permission to use symbols on care labels instead of written words, FTC pledged to coordinate a national campaign to help consumers in the transition to symbols by making sure they have easy access to additional descriptive information regarding how to care for their clothing.

("FTC Project CLEAN", July 1, 1997; materials relating to this FTC matter are available on the Internet at FTC's World Wide Web site at: http://www.ftc.gov.)