Colgate first sold toothpaste in collapsible tubes, beginning the modern packaged toothpaste era in 1896.
Before tubes became standard, toothpaste was commonly sold in jars. Colgate began marketing its dental cream in a collapsible tube in 1896, making it easier to dispense and helping keep the product cleaner between uses. The change also made toothpaste more portable for households.
Colgate's tube was part of a broader shift in personal-care packaging during the late nineteenth century. The company had been founded by William Colgate in 1806 and initially produced soap, starch and candles before expanding into oral-care products. Its toothpaste business later became part of Colgate-Palmolive.
People sometimes confuse the first toothpaste in a tube with the first toothpaste of any kind. Tooth-cleaning powders and pastes existed long before 1896, and Colgate was not the inventor of dental hygiene. The milestone concerns the collapsible-tube format that helped make branded toothpaste a mass-market consumer product.