Shark VacMop Review

My scruffy dog, Gus, and I share a single-story home in the Caribbean that has no air-conditioning and approximately 1,750 square feet of tile floors. This is worth mentioning up front because a) my ground-level windows are rarely closed, b) there are tumbleweeds of dog hair (and occasionally muddy pawprints) everywhere, and c) someone tracks in beach sand at least once a week. Maintaining clean floors would be a full-time job, and I already have one of those.

Instead, I let my robot vacuum do its thing a couple of times a week and wear house shoes to keep from feeling the grit under my bare feet.

Less frequently than I should admit, I haul out my Karcher floor cleaner, and as well as the Karcher works, it feels like a production to use. I feel compelled to sweep up the pet hair first, the machine itself is heavy to maneuver and requires its own cleanup, and the tile gets dirty again faster than the inevitable rainstorm after you wash your car.

Then my sister-in-law—a mother of two boys under the age of 4—introduced me to the $80 Shark VacMop Pro. My floor hygiene—if that’s a thing—will never be the same.

What is the Shark VacMop?

If a cordless vacuum cleaner and the Swiffer WetJet had a baby, the Shark VacMop would be that progeny. It’s a rechargeable, cordless stick vacuum with an on-board floor-cleaning solution that fulfills the function of a mop.

Basically, it’s a cordless vacuum mop that specializes in suction spray mopping. The disposable head traps dry debris with the help of suction power—so there’s no dust bin to empty—and swabs the floor with a Swiffer-like disposable pad that will absorb wet messes. With a press of a spray trigger, it becomes a wet mop to clean stuck on grime and stains.

Once the disposable VacMop pad is too dirty/frayed/full of dirt and debris, you pop the whole thing off and toss the pad into the garbage, so you never have to touch a dirty pad. To get ready for your next spray mopping session, you just need to replace the pad.

What I like about the Shark VacMop

It’s convenient

One of my biggest complaints about cleaning is that it often feels like so much effort to achieve a complete clean. (I know, it’s called a “chore” for a reason.) But, with tile floors instead of carpeting, I have to both sweep and mop, which means two sets of tools. The Shark VacMop does both in one swoop—or one at a time, if you prefer—and it’s light enough that it’s not a hassle to haul out.

The head, which has LED headlights, also maneuvers around furniture and right up in the corners of the walls. It even reaches under things, like the perimeter of the couch and the kitchen cabinet toe kicks.

The only hitch is that you need to keep the Shark VacMop charged—it lasts about an hour on a full battery—and you need to have a stash of replacement mopping pads and floor cleaning solution on hand.

The cordless vacuum mop itself is tidy

Another of my cleaning complaints is the cleanup after you finish cleaning up. As much as I adore my robot vac for its passive cleaning, I don’t enjoy dumping the dust bin, and I really don’t enjoy removing dog and human hair from the rotating brush head. The Karcher floor cleaner requires me to launder its rotating roll, which is kinda gross to wash with my other laundry.

Conversely, the Shark VacMop’s head collects all the mess in one disposable piece, and the entire thing releases with a press of a single button—I don’t even have to touch the dirty side of the pad.

What I don’t like about the Shark VacMop

It’s not super eco-friendly or cheap to use

The disposable Shark VacMop pads are really nice for cleanup, but they’re less nice for the landfills. At more than $1 a piece, the operating cost also isn’t cheap, but I can use them for up to a week of spot or area cleaning or one full-house pass.

You also have to refill the Shark Multi-Surface Cleaning Solution, for which Amazon charges about $10 for 2 liters, or roughly $0.15 per ounce. But it’s good stuff: When our cleaning experts tested the best hardwood floor cleaners, they found it performed nearly as well as the top picks. The solution itself delivers an environmentally friendly promise, with a Greenguard Gold Certification for having low chemical emissions.

This cordless vacuum mop is not totally intuitive

This may be a “me” problem, but I cannot for the life of me keep straight which button does which function. The trigger for the vacuum is on the back of the handle, while the spray button for the cleaner is on the top, and I invariably spray when I mean to dust-bust—or the other way around. (Yeah, it’s probably me.)

Should you get a Shark VacMop?

Let me put it this way: I’ve only had the thing for about a month and have already recommended it to no fewer than five of my friends. If you have hard floors like mine, I can’t recommend it highly enough for day-to-day maintenance cleaning.

Buy now on Amazon