The lowdown on the mop saga

I know that you are all on pins and needles wondering about the new Shark Steam Mop I purchased last week. If you are not aware, you can read this post.

Today my friend asked me how I liked it so I know that there are inquiring minds that want to know out there. Well, okay, at least one anyways.

I finally had the courage to open the box on Saturday while I was cleaning the house. As I mentioned before, I was a bit worried that the mop was not going to live up to the extremely high expectations I had for it. Then what would I do?
Parts: Assembly was very easy. Snap, snap, done. It took longer to take the plastic off everything than to put it together.


Before pic: dirty floor- several sticky spots.


Clean pad- nice and soft

Using the inclosed funnel and cup to fill to the marked fill line with tap water. Of course, once you open the box it is recommeded that you use distilled water to entend the life of your mop. Luckily, I had some upstairs. I want to extend the price of this over-priced mop as long as I can.

OOOHHHhhhhh! Look at that steam action in work!

There is the proof. The floor was dirty.

Nice and clean!

Overall impression:

Way better than a mop and bucket.

Way better than being on my knees to scrub it by hand.

Fun to use... I love the steam effect and the hissing noise. Makes me think it is really working good.

Love the fact that you only use water... no chemicals to buy or put on floor where babies crawl and dogs eat spilled food off of.

Easy to push.

Fun to pump for steam action.

Cute purple and silver color.

Washable pads, not disposable that we need to buy more of.

The floor is dry instantly. No water, just steam so you don't have to be telling everyone to watch the floor, it's wet- wait til it dries to walk on it. instantly. dry.

If you have watched the infomercial like I did that started this mop madness in my head, you will have seen how easy it cut through the dirt on the floors and looked like you don't have to put much effort into getting that *washable* pad dirty to see the *proof*. Okay, well like my friend and I said, they probably didn't have sticky spots on their test floor where juice and other unknown things had been for oh, say, two weeks or so and were covered in dirt and dust from all of the kitchen traffic and were not even sticky anymore.

It required some effort and lots of pumping of the steam to get that stuff off. (but remember I said the pumping and getting all that steam going was kind of cool- who needs a fog machine at their next dance? I'll just stand on the side and pump my steam mop) It took a few times over thoses sticky spots to get them off.

I also have a pretty small kitchen floor space to use this on. The water tank was almost empty after all the pumping I did trying to get the spots off, so with a large are you would definately have to refill.

Now lets look at the words they use in their ad to describe the mop:

Obliterates tough grime- well, it didn't really blast through the tough parts like obliterate makes me think, but it took them off with some steam and a few passes over the tough spots

eradicates stubborn dirt- again, a stong word. ditto above

disinegrates scuff marks- didn't really have any scuff marks. I guess I should go check the closet for some black soled shoes and try that next time.

melts away sticky messes- yes, it does melt them away with the hot, hot steam, but takes a few pumps and passes over the sticky mess. I swear it looked easier on the infomercial.

absorbs muddy footprints- didn't have any of these either. Maybe we will try that next time when we get out the black soled shoes. Or we could wear the black soled shoes in the mud and then walk on the floor to get mud and scuff marks from the same pair of shoes. None of the spots on my floor were wet so I can't really tell you how much it would absorb. The pad looked very nice and think so I think it would do good with that.

revives- my floors are not too pretty in the first place so I don't think any mop could have made them look revived.

beautifies- they were clean looking, so that counts as beautiful.

ultra light weight- yep.

1000 times easier to use than filling a bucket- who decided on 1000 as the right number? I think it is a little high. Maybe in the hundreds, the low hundreds. But yes, way easier than filling a bucket. You could probably say 1000 times more fun than filling a bucket.

You can also order the carpet glider to use the mop on steam cleaning your floors. Whoa. Now that is value right there missy.