I was dead wrong about using toothpaste to fill nail holes

My wife kept telling me to try it when we were hanging pictures in our living room last weekend. I rolled my eyes so hard because I thought it was some weird TikTok hack that would ruin the wall. But I had a tube of white Crest sitting there and no spackle, so I gave it a shot on three holes. It dried in like 10 minutes, I sanded it with a coffee filter, and you seriously cannot tell the difference. Has anyone else had this work for bigger holes or am I just lucky it was tiny ones?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade_hunt488d ago

Wait, did it really dry that fast? I tried this once with a slightly bigger hole like maybe a quarter inch and it cracked after a few days. The little nail holes are probably fine but I wouldn't trust it for anything bigger than that. The coffee filter trick is genius though I never would have thought to use that. Maybe I just used the wrong kind of toothpaste.

kelly3387d ago

Oh man, I gotta gently push back on the toothpaste thing. It's not really about the kind of toothpaste you use - it's more that toothpaste isn't really a filler at all, it's more of a temporary patch. It dries out and shrinks, which is probably why yours cracked. The coffee filter trick works because the fibers in the paper stay put and don't shrink like toothpaste does. For a hole that big, you'd honestly be better off with a little spackle or even drywall putty from the hardware store. Toothpaste is great for tiny nail holes since there's hardly any shrinkage, but for anything bigger than a pinhead it's just gonna let you down after a few days.