Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

50 years ago, hot water bottles were made with rubber, thus making them soft and flexible. They had metal sleeves/flanges in the filler opening, thus making them durable. They had rubber washers on the stopper to seal against the metal sleeve in the filler opening, thus making them water-tight and leak-proof. Last year, I tried to find such a water bottle in a store - any store - and failed. I ended up with a "latex-free" plasticky thing that was ALL plastic, no rubber, no metal, and no washer to seal. It was "okay" for a while, until the all-plastic fill spout cracked (like cheap plastic often does) and water leaked past the washerless stopper. That was enough! No more chain-store water bottles for me. So I broadened my search to anything I could find on Amazon dot com. I was fortunate to stumble across this bottle! It is everything I'd hoped for, and more! I had three "musts" and got three more "plusses" in the deal. Point by point expectations met: (1) This water bottle actually feels like soft, flexible rubber. It's friendly, not plasticky. Sure, there's a bit of rubber smell to it, but I'm not using it as a face mask - and I expect it will fade with time. (2) It actually has a metal sleeve in the filler - just like my 50-year-old water bottle, so I don't expect it will ever crack like one made just of plastic. (3) It has a real rubber washer on the stopper to seal against the metal fill-spout flange/sleeve. And it does seal, exactly as they did 50 years ago. The unexpected blessings: (1) This bottle wasn't exactly as pictured. It was better. Each of the two flat sides is completely covered with a soft ribbing pattern. Not only does it feel softer that way, but I realized (as I never had before) that the ribbing creates a little air-gap between the hot rubber surface and my skin - so that the heat from the water is less likely to overpower my skin - and I'm less likely to stick to the surface as well. (2) It was priced below the inferior bottle I'd gotten locally. Yes, I expected that when I placed the order because I could see the price - but I hadn't expected to find a better bottle at a lower price when I first started my search! (3) It came very quickly - on the short side of the delivery promise, not the long - and that was with free shipping! I was tempted to order about a thousand of these and open a hot-water bottle outlet store here in town. Nobody would buy anywhere else! But then it occurred to me that there may not be a universal demand for hot water bottles. So, I'll just stay happy with my new little red-rubber friend, and share the good news with anyone else who remembers "the good ole days" when you were confident that what you bought at the local general store was going to be just what you needed.