Labeling clothes

There are many different washable tags that you can purchase from various low vision and blindness product catalogs. One of the most popular types is metal tags with Braille abbreviations of colors. These are small tags that can be sewn or safety pinned into clothing. Here's where to go to get them.

You can also label your clothes with safety pins. A single safety pin could identify green clothes, while two pins denote blue clothes. You can chain safety pins together as well as pinning them on separately to further identify your clothes.

Some people put one safety pin on all their clothes that match each other. So, for example, you might have a single safety pin on a green and blue striped shirt, a blue plaid blouse, a blue sweater with snowflakes and on a blue skirt that all these tops match with.

The above two methods are my personal favorites. The definite advantages are that the metal tags and safety pins last a long time. They will hold up through lots of washes and are inexpensive.

I also identify a lot of my clothes by remembering the cut of the garment, position of buttons, texture of the fabric and that sort of thing. I know that my red sweater has a rounded neckline and buttons up the front. My cream sweater also buttons up the front, but the collar folds over.

Sometimes I will cut the corner off of a tag to distinguish that piece of clothing from something similar. I have several sweat shirts that feel the same. The corner of the tag in the green sweat shirt has been cut. Now I can quickly tell which the green is.

Another idea is to use Braille or puff paint note cards. The cards can be pinned on the garment or rubber banded to the hanger. The disadvantage here is that you have to take off the label when you are wearing it and to wash it. If you can remember what label goes with what until the clothes are laundered this method would work. This would also be a good method to use with dry clean clothing.

Socks can be safety pinned together or you can purchase sock savers. I haven’t had good luck with safety pinning socks. The socks tend to get tangled up with each other, the safety pin and other clothes in the wash. The sock savers work pretty well unless you wear really heavy socks. They won’t fit into the sock saver ring and they don’t get all the way dry in the clothes dryer. All of my shoes I can identify by the shape. I don’t have a huge collection! I have a good friend who absolutely loves shoes. She will purchase several pairs of the same style in different colors. She suggests using clothes pins to clip the shoes together. A note card label or other label can be attached to the clothespin.

Another method of keeping shoes organized is to keep them in the shoe box they came with. The outside of the box can easily be labeled with Braille, large print, raised print or however you label.

A definite advantage with the boxes is that they stack nicely in the closet! If your closet looks anything like mine, space is at a premium!