True inventor

It is dentist Washington Sheffield who chose such a simple way to keep toothpaste. As a matter of fact, he did not invent the tube as such but hit upon the idea to keep toothpaste in a collapsible tube.

  Incidentally, only artistic paints had been kept in metal tubes before that moment. So Sheffield improved the form and design and injected toothpaste, also a novelty at the time, into a lead tube. This idea gripped the inventor dentist’s mind so much that he launched mass production of toothpaste tubes.

  Here our story becomes more interesting, for it is connected with the well-known druggist William Colgate. It is Colgate who began selling, shortly before the invention of the tube, a “rare” version of tooth powder. All kinds of tooth powder were sold in very inconvenient paper bags at the time. But the druggist could not find a better packing replacement than the plain jar, which users found equally inconvenient. But Colgate took advantage of the business ignorance of Sheffield who did not patent his tube. Colgate not only patented the toothpaste tube, but also began to use it as a convenient container for all of his creams and ointments.

  As is known, we all like the things that make household life easier, so Colgate’s tubes became popular with users very soon. And the fact that this convenient item was the result of foul play is not of much interest to anybody.