As a lifetime hot-water-bottle user, I have waxed poetic about them before, and I am a purist. The vessels should be all-natural rubber. And they should of course be traditionally shaped, like square whoopee cushions. Or so I thought until our water heater broke down in Paris in early November. After a month of multiple repair attempts, thankfully, a brand-new system was installed, and during that time of baths via electric-kettle-zapped water and cold radiators, my husband gave me a YUYU.
Richard Yu — who grew up Sri Lanka and Australia before settling in the U.K. — debuted his hot-water bottle at Harrods in 2011. “I just walked in … I didn’t have a meeting. I had a gold foil box,” Yu remembered on a call. He approached a brand manager, popped the lid, and peeled back some Japanese tissue paper to reveal a hot water bottle made from biodegradable, grade-A rubber sourced in Sri Lanka. It was also thin and long at about 32 inches. “This is a more practical shape,” Yu explained of his invention, which was enrobed in a cashmere cover with mother-of-pearl buttons. “Six weeks later, they were for sale,” he told me. Today, the YUYU is among Harrods’ top-20 best sellers in homewares.
YUYU soon began to make (and still makes) private-label hot water bottles for luxury hotels and resorts such as the Ritz London, Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, and Six Senses. Cédric Waterkeyn, who leads the 24-hour butler service at Hôtel de Crillon, said the butlers “like to give special attention to our guests who have caught a cold by offering them a YUYU HWB accompanied by a cup of tea.”
Around 2013, a woman with endometriosis suggested the hot-water-bottle-maker add a tie function to the ends of the covers, so that you can secure it against yourself — around the waist or back, like a cummerbund, or along the chest, like a pageant sash — and the YUYU’s warm hug has since earned it numerous “love letters” from people “using hot applications for pain or discomfort” due to conditions ranging from Crohn’s disease to chemo, Yu said.
My husband gave me my YUYU with a cover by Wallace Sewell. It is lambswool, in one of its pixelated weaves, and so pretty that I’ve run into the grocer, the boulangerie, and the bánh mì spot downstairs while wearing it. The Wallace Sewell covers were a pilot — the brand only made a few dozen, and those sold out within days. They’ll be back this fall. YUYU makes a range of covers — from fleece (about $40, with the bottle and before shipping) to Mongolian cashmere (about $140), Liberty Fabrics (about $90), Indian waffled cotton (about $45), and Scottish woolen tartan (about $120). N.B.: the worms for kids (about $35).
[Editor’s note: YUYU lists its prices in GBP — the price shown in USD is an approximation.]
During the winter, instead of blasting the heat, I often work at my desk with a hot water bottle on my lap. The YUYU, however, can be draped over sore shoulders and cinched around a cramping belly or lower back. I’ve been wearing mine nonstop in January and February, especially during the recent subzero snap in Paris. I work from home now, but it used to be that I’d bring a mini red hot water bottle to One World Trade Center and tank it up at the tea counter. (The offices were arctic — something to do with the building’s anti-biological-terrorism setup, as I remember being told.) If you have an electric kettle at work, and your workplace is uncomfortably cold, you could wear the YUYU without raising brows. It can scan as a scarf. I’ve been sleeping with my YUYU, which keeps warm through the morn. I packed it (along with a couple of traditional hot water bottles) on a recent long weekend in Burgundy, and my friend Catharine Dahm, who works in fashion and upscale hospitality, wore it day and night and did some yoga with it on, then demanded, “Where do I get one?”
You can buy copycats on Amazon, but Yu’s is the original lanky hot water bottle. While YUYU plans to launch a U.S. site this year, for now, Americans can order from the Great Britain site (shipping starts around $30) or buy from Hamptons-based cookshop Loaves & Fishes, which just received a shipment of YUYUs with stone-, mint-, and ocean-colored Belgian linen covers ($118), and takes orders by phone and FaceTime.
YUYUs can be filled with icy water but should not be frozen. (The rubber becomes brittle.) The company has a newer ice recovery bottle in the same dimensions — for sporty types (users include rugby and volleyball teams, the Orlando Magic, Olympians, and Formula 1 racers) and those recovering from injuries or coping with inflammation, menopause, and other heat waves. As they say, take care.
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