Every household has stuff in tubes: toothpaste or ointments, even glue. If you’re like me, you want to get every last drop of product out of that tube. :oops: I’ve been able to do this easily with one product I bought ten years ago, and it was $12 well spent!
I couldn’t do without my Tube Wringer from the Gill Mechanical Company. I don’t use it on a daily basis - not even a monthly basis! - but it’s one of my favorite household gadgets. It lets me get toothpaste out of the tube when I haven’t been able to make it to the store to get more (I’d use it anyway; I hate waste), often for a couple of weeks.
I’m always amazed at how much product is actually left in the tube, how much I would have been throwing away. It works fine on plastic tubes and is wonderful on metal tubes. And unlike the usual tube squeezers I see on the market, it can accommodate tubes that are wider than the norm.
It also has other uses, if you’re into crafts… you can crinkle paper in it. If you’re a scrapbooker, you might even have one in your scrapbooking tools (although you might not want to use it for sqeezing the tubes of glue - especially if they’re metal - unless you don’t care about the possibility of getting the glue on your wringer).
I’ve even let my kids play with the Tube Wringer with clay. My wringer still has homemade play dough stuck in the rollers, but being made of nylon they’re easily washable (and won’t rust like the metal wringers I’ve seen).
Off to squeeze my near-empty tube of Un-Petroleum Jelly, which is what prompted me to write this post. 
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5 responses so far ↓
1 clickable // Feb 3, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Congrats on the Times mention! Just wanted to say the best doodad like this I saw was the one I got as a promo item from my dentist. It looked like a credit card, with a slit down the middle to insert the tube. You would slide the card upward as you use up the toothpaste.
Best of all, this is an easy DIY - and therefore truly frugal - that anyone can make, either with an expired card or one of those fake cards that come in the mail from places like Capital One.
2 Barb // Feb 3, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Clickable,
Times mention? Could you point me to it?
I’ve never seen the card-like squeezer, but the DIY squeezer sounds interesting. Hmmm, I’ll have to see if I can find something on the ‘net.
I’m assuming it would have to be used for small-ish tubes, though, unlike this wringer (which can fit thick and wide tubes)?
3 clickable // Feb 4, 2007 at 11:37 am
Hi Barb! Wow, looks like I get to be the bearer of good news. You were mentioned in a New York Times article about consumer advocacy on the ‘net - “Consumers Have Allies on the Web.” Here is the direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/business/03money.html?ref=technology
Enjoy :-)!
The credit-card sized squeezer won’t handle anything wider than the slit can accommodate - I’d say about 2 1/2″. But it takes up almost no space, does the job well on my regular tubes, and the way he had them made up - as a facsimile of his business card - made them one of the more clever promotional giveaways I’ve seen.
4 Barb // Feb 11, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Clickable,
Your comment was caught by Akismet for some reason. Thanks for the link, though!
I’m going to see if I can find a DIY tube squeezer tutorial right now.
5 Art Kennedy // Nov 27, 2007 at 11:19 am
I was thinking “someone” should make a rig for holding various size bottles and jars upside down over a receptacle to drain said containers completely.
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