Care Instructions — Your Friendly Guide

Welcome! This guide explains how the Care Instructions app works in plain language — no jargon. Whether you're setting up care labels for your products or just curious how shoppers see them, this is for you.

What this app is for

Every washable product — a t-shirt, a bedsheet, a tea towel — needs care instructions. Traditionally those tiny symbols are sewn onto a label inside the garment, often illegible and only in one language.

This app gives you a modern alternative: a clear, colourful, multilingual care page that your customers can pull up on their phone. They see exactly how to wash, dry, iron, bleach, and clean each item — in English, German, or French.

For you, it's also a smart way to manage care information across a big catalogue without editing every product one by one.

How care labels are organised

The clever part is how care labels are applied. You don't have to write instructions for every single product. Instead, you set them at three different levels, and the app picks the right one automatically.

The three levels

1. The catalogue-wide default Think of this as your safety net. It's one set of instructions that applies to everything in your collection unless you say otherwise. Most brands start with something gentle and sensible like "wash at 30°, line dry, iron low".

2. Rules based on product traits You can write rules that apply to groups of products sharing certain traits — for example, "everything made of silk" or "all swimwear". When a product matches a rule, the rule's instructions are used.

3. A specific product's own label Sometimes one product is just unusual and needs its own instructions. You can attach a label directly to that single product and it overrides everything else.

How the app chooses

When a shopper views a product, the app looks for the most specific match first:

1. Does this exact product have its own label? Use that.
2. If not — does it match any rules? Use the most specific matching rule.
3. If not — fall back to the catalogue-wide default.

This means you set up the common stuff once, write a handful of rules for special cases, and only ever fuss with individual products when you really need to.

Setting up your care labels (the admin side)

When you open the app's admin area, you'll see a clean workspace with three sections corresponding to the three levels above.

Step 1 — Set your catalogue-wide default

Open the catalogue default section. Pick the care symbols that should apply to most of your products. You can also add a short note in your own words ("our linens are pre-washed and gentle on skin", for example).

Save it. That's now the baseline for everything.

Step 2 — Add rules for groups of products

Open the rules section and create a new rule. You'll choose:

• Which products it applies to — for example, products tagged as silk, or products in your "kids" category, or products weighing under a certain amount.
• What care symbols those products should show.
• An optional note.

You can write as many rules as you like. If a product matches more than one, the most specific rule (the one with the most conditions) wins.

Step 3 — Override individual products

Occasionally you'll have a product that doesn't fit any rule — maybe a vintage jacket that needs specialist dry cleaning. Open the products section, find the item, and give it its own care label. That label takes priority over everything else for that product.

Picking symbols

The app uses the international ISO 3758 care symbols — the same little icons sewn into clothing labels worldwide. They're grouped into categories: washing, bleaching, drying, ironing, and professional cleaning. You can browse them by category or search by name. Hover over any symbol to see what it means.

Adding notes

Each label can include a short written note (for example, "we recommend using a colour-catcher sheet").

You only need to write the note once, in whatever language you're working in. The app will automatically translate it for shoppers viewing in another language. If you'd rather write a translation yourself for a specific language, you can — just switch to that language in the admin and type your own version.

Display settings

Below the editor you'll find display settings that change how the public page looks to your shoppers — for example, whether to show short descriptions next to each symbol, or how prominent the brand styling should be. Changes take effect immediately.

What shoppers see

Shoppers reach the care page either by scanning a QR code on the product, tapping a link from a product page, or clicking a small care widget embedded elsewhere.

The full care page

This is the main experience. It shows:

• A clear heading with the product name.
• All the care symbols, grouped by category, each with its name and a short description.
• Any note you wrote, translated into their language.
• A clean, mobile-friendly layout that works in light or dark mode and adapts to your brand colours.

Shoppers can switch between English, German, and French at any time.

The care widget

Sometimes you don't want the full page — you want a small preview that fits inside another page or card. The widget shows:

• A small icon and title ("Care Instructions").
• A row of the most important care symbols.
• A button that opens the full care page when tapped.

The widget is compact, comes in a few sizes, and is perfect for product cards, summary panels, or anywhere you want to hint at the full care information without taking over the screen.

Tips and good habits

• Start broad, refine later. Set your catalogue-wide default first. Add rules only as you discover groups of products that genuinely need different care. Use product-specific overrides sparingly.
• Keep notes short and useful. Customers skim. One or two friendly sentences beats a paragraph.
• Trust the auto-translation. It works well for short care notes. Only write manual translations when you have a specific phrase you want to control.
• Preview before you publish. After saving any change, view the public page yourself to check it reads the way you want.
• Less is more. A clear handful of symbols is more useful to a shopper than a wall of every possible icon.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to set up rules? No. If you only have a catalogue-wide default, every product will use it. Rules are just a convenience for groups that need something different.

What if a product matches two rules? The more specific rule wins — that is, the one with more conditions, or the one whose conditions are more narrowly defined.

Can I have different care labels in different languages? The symbols are universal — they don't change between languages. Only the note text is translated. You can let the app translate automatically, or write your own version for any language.

What if I haven't set anything up yet? The public care page will gracefully say there are no instructions yet. Once you save your catalogue-wide default, it appears immediately.

Can I have multiple care labels on one product? (for example, "shell" and "lining" instructions for a coat) Not yet — each product currently has one set of care instructions. Multi-part labels are something we may add in the future.

In short

1. Set a sensible catalogue-wide default.
2. Add a few rules for product groups that need different care.
3. Override individual products only when you must.
4. Let shoppers enjoy a clear, multilingual care page — either the full version, or a tidy widget tucked into another part of your site.

That's it. Happy laundering.