Laundry isn’t just about washing dirty clothes so you have clean ones to wear. It’s about cleaning and maintaining your wearables and textiles so that they always look their best, whether that means making jewelry sparkle, getting stains out of the lining of a purse, or keeping shoes looking their sharpest. And there’s a simple way to have all those things: A tube of non-gel toothpaste.

Next time you’re grocery shopping, grab a basic tube of toothpaste and stash it in your laundry room, or with the bag or kit, you take with you to the laundromat. It can do so much more than brushing your pearly whites.

Here are some of our favorite things that you can do with toothpaste:

Clean the rubber off your sneakers. Scrub with an old toothbrush and a dab of toothpaste to get those white rubber edges looking like new.

Get the gunk off your iron. Squeeze some toothpaste onto a rag and scrub your iron with it. Wipe off with another wet rag and dry.

Remove lipstick, ink, and grass stains from clothing. Cover the stain with toothpaste, rub together vigorously, rinse with warm water, and launder as usual.

Remove wine stains from tablecloths. Smear with toothpaste and let sit before laundering as usual.

Address exploding ink stains with toothpaste. Using the same basic method as above, dab toothpaste on the stains, rub together and then rinse.

Make jewelry sparkle. Use an old toothbrush and some toothpaste to scrub everything from gold chains to your rings’ precious stones. Rinse and wear.

Remove errant wads of gum from clothing. Smear the toothpaste over the gum and then flatten the wad with a ruler or something else with a flat, sharp edge. Once the toothpaste dries, the gum should be easier to remove.

Buff scuffed shoes. Dab with toothpaste and rub with a soft cloth.