1 Buck Toothpaste Hack: Make This Tube Squeezer in Under 5 Minutes

Let's face it—if you care about anyone around you, then you brush your teeth. Brushing is an excellent way to not only prevent tooth decay, but to keep people from running away from you with their noses pinched.

But where there's a positive, there's always a negative. One thing that sucks about dental hygiene is trying to squeeze that last ounce of toothpaste out of your tube. For some reason, we all wait until the last possible moment to buy a new tube, which means we could all benefit from a little MacGyver-esque thinking.

Today, I'm going to show you a way to easily squeeze any and all of that toothpaste out of your tube with a DIY squeezer. It will only take a few minutes for you to make, and you probably already have the materials. If not, you can get them for under a buck.

Materials

• Wooden dowel
• 2 small elastic hair ties (or rubber bands)
• Cutting utensil (preferably a wood-cutting hacksaw blade)
• Pencil

Measure Dowel

Measure your dowel against your tube of toothpaste.

Using your pencil, make a mark so that the dowel section that will be cut is about 1/4 of an inch longer than either side of the tube.

Repeat this step on another section of your dowel so that you have two pieces to cut.

Cut Dowel

Using whatever cutting utensil you chose, cut the two sections of dowel off the bigger rod.

As you can see, I am terrible at cutting and my pieces came out different sizes. This is mostly due to my saw blade breaking halfway through the cut (and just a wee bit of incompetence) and having to do the rest by hand. If your pieces come out different sizes like mine, it isn't really a big deal.

Cut Notches

Using your cutting utensil, cut a shallow notch into one side of a dowel section.

Repeat on the other side, so your dowel section has two notches.

Repeat with the other dowel section. There should be a grand total of four notches.

Attach Rubber Bands to Dowels

You want to select the smallest elastic hair bands that you can find that will not break under pressure. I chose purple because it is my favorite color.

Next, line up the two dowel pieces so that the notches are facing away from each other. Two should be up and two should be down. Loop the rubber bands around the dowels so that they stick into the grooves. If your bands are loose, then double loop them.

Your toothpaste squeezer is now done! To apply it to your toothpaste tube, simply slide the end between the two dowels and slide it upwards. The pressure will keep the the toothpaste confined to the upper regions of the tube. As you brush your teeth every day, just keep sliding it up.

Here's a side view:

Can you think of a way to improve this idea? Tell me about it in the comments section below!