With tomato paste and artists paint tubes you still can roll the metal tube up to the last degree, but plastic toothpaste tubes are definitely not an advance.
I use prescription toothpaste, Colgate Prevident 5000. It’s got higher flouride. I went through a period where my teeth were as sensitive as hell and nothing helped until I started using this stuff. A year or so in, and my pharmacy gave me a generic instead of the real stuff and the sensitivity came right back. Pretty weird. I have to make sure they dispense the real stuff now. I’m strict about it.
My toothpaste costs about $20 per tube and it’s tiny. But I only brush once a day and it lasts 3-4 months.
It used to come in a flip-top container but now it comes in a regular tube. I never cut open the container and while I try to get as much out of the tube as possible, I have yet to cut up the tube.
I probably would be saving a bit more than 25 cents a year by wiping the insides dry but…eh. I kind of feel like after 3 months maybe the active ingredients aren’t so active anymore and I should replace the tube anyway.
BTW I brush once a day with this stuff and use an electric toothbrush and my dental hygienist has the highest praise for me! Even though I smoke and drink diet cola. So I believe there’s something special with my toothpaste!
If you’re in a hotel room, you call the front desk and see if they keep basic toiletry items like that for their guests. IME most do.
Cut the tube in two with scissors, I have learned. Then dig into the tube with the toothbrush. There is still a lot in there! Close the tube with the other end again by bending it slightly and inserting it.
Disclaimer: Do not do that before clearing customs of a naturally suspicious and paranoid country! Examples abound, just say China, Russia, USA or North Korea.
Or, i wad up a piece of clean toilet paper, clean my mouth, and go to bed. Without waiting around, having staff enter my room, etc.
Different strokes for different folks.
Yeah, onenof my wife’s parents grew up relatively poor on a farm and transmitted these sorts of “penny-wise, pound-foolish” behaviors to her.
It’s completely dumb-ass stuff like scraping for several minutes to retrieve the last two teaspoons of peanut butter from a jar. Or worrying the toothpaste far beyond anything rational.
At least she doesn’t rinse and reuse plastic bags like her mom.
What’s interesting to me about that end-of-tube process is that you find you can use a very small amount of paste and still get what seems to be a perfectly adequate brushing.
So now take advantage of that knowledge and use that smidgen of toothpaste every time, not just while eking out one last use. That e.g. 3 oz. tube now holds 25 “servings”, not just 8.
Getting e.g. 3x or even 5x the uses out of a tube is the same as getting an 60-80% discount off the price you’ve been paying.
That’s being frugal smart, not frugal stupid. The TV commercials show people using about 15 servings of paste for one brushing.
Probably 12 for me. I like to be a bit generous with the toothpaste.
Not for economy’s sake, but for the environment, this is actually a good idea. Single use plastics are awful.
I just searched Amazon for “toothpaste tube squeezer” and of course there are a bazillion of them, of a wide variety of designs. I also looked on Thingiverse, and there are a bunch of them there too, that you can print yourself.
The .85 oz (24 g) travel-sized toothpaste I take with me can last 3-4 weeks, brushing twice a day, if I use a dab. No apparent difference other than a lot less foam.
Surely to be a real toothpaste curmudgeon you would never actually buy a tube of toothpaste, only dry tooth powder. (Or mix your own!)
Absolutely (though admittedly, I never thought of finishing one container of something before opening another as particularly frugal). And yet, the deodorant is gone two days after you notice it’s low, so you better always have a spare on hand if you are a weekend shopper.
That can’t be true because most toothpastes contain flouride, and also because they contain mild abrasives that help remove plaque. The bristle action does help with gum health, though.
The dentist I had years ago was a strong proponent of electric toothbrushes, especially for kids who may not have learned to brush properly. I gave one to my kid but ended up using an electric toothbrush myself ever since (I use a Braun with the rotating head type). I’ve heard them criticized as being used by those “too lazy to move the brush by hand” but the reality is that they have a completely different mode of action than manual brushes.
No, it isn’t. The mouthwash I use regularly has a label that proclaims all the terrific things it does for you, and it also carries this warning: “This is NOT a substitute for brushing!”.
My Daddy..(omg, he was a bird in this world) used that “tooth powder” stuff.
Nasty.
Must be great. He had all his teeth (well, he lost a molar in a fight, he said) when he died at age 86.
But, I’m like @puzzlegal , I like me some foamy action. I’m sure I use way too much paste.
I’m on a well, I used to get my kids prescription Flouride tooth gel. They hated that stuff so bad. Grape flavored yuck.
I forgot toothpaste once on a trip. All I had was a cheap toothbrush and a tiny bottle of Dr. Ticheners mouth wash. DO NOT brush your teeth with the Doctor. You will be so sorry. Believe me.
Someone who doesn’t treat their own tube properly will have no qualms about using the other person’s tube at their convenience.
Not a solution.
Which is why I almost always brush with mouthwash - kills two birds with one stone.
I do this too, it works really well.
There’s a certain brand of shampoo that I like but I rarely buy because the lid is too round to stand the bottle on end and I feel like I’m not getting everything I can out of the bottle even after I add water and shake.
My mother, who died last year, was permanently into that wartime scrimp-and-save, make-do-and-mend mentality, having grown up in the Depression and the war. I would sometimes say to her, "the rationing ended seventy years ago, sailors aren’t dying to bring it across the Atlantic any more, you can afford to ease up a bit ".
If your Mum was anything like my late aged MIL, that made exactly zero dent in her neutronium behavior armor.
She’d nod, smile, and put yet another rubber band into the drawer already bursting with rubber bands, most of them having rotted unseen into uselessness years decades ago.