Se laver is one of the first reflexive verbs you meet, and it carries one of the most important rules in all of French grammar: when you wash a part of your body, French uses the definite article (les mains, la figure) and never the possessive (mes mains, ma figure). The reflexive pronoun already says whose hands — adding mes would be redundant. This rule is not optional and it is not stylistic; it is the entire grammar of body parts in French.
This page is the full reference: every paradigm of the regular -er verb (se) laver, the body-part construction in detail, the participle-agreement subtlety it creates, the transitive laver, and the idioms.
The simple tenses
Perfectly regular -er conjugation. No spelling change anywhere.
Présent de l'indicatif
| Person | Form | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| je | me lave | /mə lav/ |
| tu | te laves | /tə lav/ |
| il / elle / on | se lave | /sə lav/ |
| nous | nous lavons | /nu lavɔ̃/ |
| vous | vous lavez | /vu lave/ |
| ils / elles | se lavent | /sə lav/ |
Je me lave avant le petit-déjeuner, sinon je n'ai jamais le temps.
I wash up before breakfast, otherwise I never have time.
Lave-toi les mains avant de passer à table.
Wash your hands before sitting down to eat.
Le chat se lave la patte avec sa langue.
The cat is washing its paw with its tongue.
Imparfait
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| je | me lavais |
| tu | te lavais |
| il / elle / on | se lavait |
| nous | nous lavions |
| vous | vous laviez |
| ils / elles | se lavaient |
À l'époque, on se lavait dans une bassine, l'eau chaude était un luxe.
Back then, we washed in a basin — hot water was a luxury.
Futur simple
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| je | me laverai |
| tu | te laveras |
| il / elle / on | se lavera |
| nous | nous laverons |
| vous | vous laverez |
| ils / elles | se laveront |
Je me laverai en rentrant du travail, j'ai fait du sport ce midi.
I'll shower when I get home from work, I worked out at lunch.
Conditionnel présent
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| je | me laverais |
| tu | te laverais |
| il / elle / on | se laverait |
| nous | nous laverions |
| vous | vous laveriez |
| ils / elles | se laveraient |
Si tu m'écoutais, tu te laverais les mains plus souvent.
If you listened to me, you'd wash your hands more often.
Subjonctif présent
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| (que) je | me lave |
| (que) tu | te laves |
| (qu')il / elle / on | se lave |
| (que) nous | nous lavions |
| (que) vous | vous laviez |
| (qu')ils / elles | se lavent |
Il faut que tu te laves les dents avant de te coucher.
You need to brush your teeth before going to bed.
Impératif
The pronoun follows the verb with a hyphen; te becomes toi.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| (tu) | lave-toi |
| (nous) | lavons-nous |
| (vous) | lavez-vous |
Lave-toi les mains, tu rentres du jardin.
Wash your hands, you've just come in from the garden.
Ne te lave pas la figure avec ce savon, il pique les yeux.
Don't wash your face with that soap, it stings the eyes.
Participles
- Participe passé: lavé (feminine lavée, plural lavés / lavées)
- Participe présent: (se) lavant
- Gérondif: en (se) lavant
The body-part construction — and why this verb matters
This is the most important part of the page.
Rule. When you wash, brush, comb, or otherwise act on a part of your own body using a reflexive verb, French marks the body part with the definite article (le / la / les), not the possessive (mon / ma / mes).
Je me lave les mains. (I wash my hands.) Je me brosse les dents. (I brush my teeth.) Elle se lave la figure. (She washes her face.) Il se lave les cheveux. (He washes his hair.)
Saying je me lave mes mains is wrong. Not casual, not informal — wrong. The reflexive me already specifies whose hands they are; the possessive would be redundant.
Je me lave les cheveux tous les deux jours.
I wash my hair every two days.
Tu t'es lavé les mains après avoir caressé le chien ?
Did you wash your hands after petting the dog?
Elle se lave la figure à l'eau froide chaque matin.
She washes her face with cold water every morning.
The same definite-article rule applies to almost any verb acting on a body part: se brosser les dents (brush one's teeth), se peigner les cheveux (comb one's hair), se sécher les mains (dry one's hands), se couper les ongles (cut one's nails), se gratter la tête (scratch one's head).
Brosse-toi les dents, on est en retard.
Brush your teeth, we're late.
Il s'est cassé la jambe en faisant du ski.
He broke his leg skiing.
The last example is technically not a wash — but it follows the same construction. Se casser la jambe, never se casser sa jambe. The pattern is: pronominal verb + body part with definite article.
The compound tenses — and the agreement subtlety
Se laver is pronominal, so the auxiliary is always être. But participle agreement here is more subtle than for se lever or se coucher, and this is where the body-part construction has a surprising consequence.
The general rule
For pronominal verbs, the participle agrees with a preceding direct object. In most cases the reflexive pronoun me / te / se / nous / vous / se is itself the direct object — and so the participle agrees with the subject (since the reflexive refers back to the subject).
Elle s'est lavée. (She washed.) — se is the direct object, refers to elle, so lavée (f.sg.).
The body-part exception — no agreement when the body part is the direct object
When you say elle s'est lavé les mains, the direct object is no longer se — it is les mains. The reflexive se is now an indirect object: she washed the hands to herself. And les mains comes after the participle, so it is not a preceding direct object. The rule is then: no agreement.
Elle s'est lavé les mains. (She washed her hands.) — lavé stays masculine singular; no agreement.
This is the rule that catches every learner. Even when the subject is feminine, even when the body part is plural, the participle in this construction stays in the bare -é form.
Elle s'est lavé les mains avant de manger.
She washed her hands before eating. (no agreement: les mains is the direct object and follows the participle)
Elles se sont lavé les cheveux ce matin.
They (f.) washed their hair this morning. (no agreement)
On s'est brossé les dents, on peut y aller.
We've brushed our teeth, we can go.
Compare to the agreement that does happen when the body part is fronted (becomes a preceding direct object) via a relative clause:
Les mains qu'elle s'est lavées étaient toutes sales.
The hands she washed were filthy. (lavées agrees with les mains, which now precedes the participle)
This second pattern is grammatically correct but rare in everyday speech. The first pattern — no agreement, body part after — is what you will hear and write 99% of the time.
Passé composé — paradigm
The agreement difference is important enough to show two paradigms side by side.
Without a body part — agreement applies (se is direct object):
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| je | me suis lavé(e) |
| tu | t'es lavé(e) |
| il / on | s'est lavé |
| elle | s'est lavée |
| nous | nous sommes lavé(e)s |
| vous | vous êtes lavé(e)(s) |
| ils | se sont lavés |
| elles | se sont lavées |
With a body part — no agreement (body part is direct object, comes after):
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| je | me suis lavé les mains |
| tu | t'es lavé les mains |
| il / elle / on | s'est lavé les mains |
| nous | nous sommes lavé les mains |
| vous | vous êtes lavé les mains |
| ils / elles | se sont lavé les mains |
Notice: in the second table, lavé is the same form everywhere. No -e, no -s. This is unusual enough to memorize as a separate fact.
Marie s'est lavée puis elle s'est lavé les cheveux.
Marie washed (lavée — agreement), then she washed her hair (lavé — no agreement).
That single sentence is the entire rule in one example. Read it three times.
The transitive laver
Without the reflexive, laver takes a direct object that is not the subject. You wash someone or something else.
Je lave le linge le samedi matin.
I do the laundry on Saturday morning.
Tu peux laver la voiture pendant que je fais les courses ?
Can you wash the car while I do the shopping?
Elle a lavé son chien dans la baignoire.
She washed her dog in the bathtub.
The participle agrees with a preceding direct object — the standard avoir rule:
Les chaussettes que j'ai lavées ce matin sèchent dehors.
The socks I washed this morning are drying outside.
High-frequency idioms
- se laver les mains de (figurative) — to wash one's hands of (responsibility)
- je m'en lave les mains — I'm washing my hands of it (Pilate's phrase, used everywhere)
- laver son linge sale en famille (proverb) — to keep one's dirty laundry within the family (don't air it in public)
- lavé plus blanc que blanc — washed whiter than white (advertising cliché, often ironic)
- se faire laver (slang) — to get a thrashing (physically or in a competition)
Tu as fait la bêtise, c'est à toi de la réparer — moi, je m'en lave les mains.
You did the silly thing, it's up to you to fix it — I'm washing my hands of it.
On lave son linge sale en famille, pas devant les voisins.
We keep our dirty laundry within the family, not in front of the neighbors.
L'équipe s'est fait laver six à zéro.
The team got thrashed six to nothing.
Comparison with English
The body-part construction is the single biggest difference, but a few other points trip English speakers.
- Possessive vs definite article on body parts. English says I wash my hands; French says je me lave les mains. The English possessive becomes a French definite article — provided a reflexive (or sometimes an indirect object pronoun) marks the owner. Without that grammatical hook, French does revert to the possessive: Mes mains sont sales (my hands are dirty), no verb to attach the reflexive to.
- Wash vs shower vs bathe. Se laver is the general verb for washing the body. For showering specifically, French has se doucher; for bathing, prendre un bain (or, more rarely, se baigner, though that often means to swim in casual speech). Je me lave is the neutral choice when you don't specify.
- Brushing teeth. English has the dedicated verb brush; French uses se brosser with the body-part construction: je me brosse les dents. The reflexive plus definite article is the same pattern as se laver les mains.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Using the possessive with a body part.
❌ Je me lave mes mains.
Wrong — when a reflexive verb acts on a body part, French uses the definite article. The reflexive me already says 'my'.
✅ Je me lave les mains.
I wash my hands.
Mistake 2: Making the participle agree when there is a body-part direct object.
❌ Elle s'est lavée les mains.
Wrong — les mains is the direct object and comes after the participle, so no agreement on lavé.
✅ Elle s'est lavé les mains.
She washed her hands.
Mistake 3: Forgetting agreement when there is no body part.
❌ Elle s'est lavé.
Wrong — without a body part, se is the direct object referring to a feminine subject, so the participle agrees: lavée.
✅ Elle s'est lavée.
She washed (herself).
Mistake 4: Using avoir in the passé composé.
❌ J'ai me lavé ce matin.
Wrong — pronominal verbs always use être, and the pronoun precedes the auxiliary.
✅ Je me suis lavé(e) ce matin.
I washed up this morning.
Mistake 5: Translating I wash my car with a reflexive.
❌ Je me lave la voiture.
Wrong — the reflexive is only for things that are part of you. For washing your own car, use the transitive: je lave ma voiture (or simply ma voiture, with possessive).
✅ Je lave ma voiture le samedi.
I wash my car on Saturdays.
Key takeaways
Se laver is the everyday verb for washing oneself, and it is the gateway to one of the most important rules in French grammar: when a reflexive verb acts on a body part, the body part takes the definite article, not the possessive. Je me lave les mains, never je me lave mes mains.
This rule has a knock-on consequence in compound tenses: when the body part is the direct object, it comes after the participle, the reflexive becomes an indirect object, and the participle does not agree. So elle s'est lavé les mains — masculine singular lavé, even though the subject is feminine. Compare with elle s'est lavée — lavée feminine, because se is the direct object and refers back to elle.
The conjugation itself is perfectly regular -er, no spelling change. The hard part of se laver is not the conjugation but the syntax around body parts — the same syntax you'll use for se brosser les dents, se sécher les cheveux, se couper les ongles, se casser la jambe. Master se laver and you have the body-part construction for the entire language.
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