I’m slowly increasing the number of Method products I own, (because I can’t help it!  They’re just so pretty! and they work so well!) and this is the latest one.  It’s a really nice floor cleaner with a WONDERFUL fragrance.  I didn’t realize how much I like almond fragrance till I got this — I’m hoping Method starts making an almond scented shower gel and lotion to match, because I would buy those in a heartbeat!

Anyway, this is a lovely floor cleaner — it’s kind to my hardwood floors, leaves them shiny-shiny-shiny, and doesn’t strip them of their finish.  I’ve actually started using it to clean up places my dog has had accidents — if I use any other cleaner I can actually see the chemicals eating into the floor finish making it dull while the rest of the floor looks nice and shiny. And have I mentioned I love the scent?

This floor cleaner only has one major drawback — the nozzle.  While the bottle is very attractive, the nozzle releases a stream of cleaning fluid — and I would much prefer a spray bottle.  My old BonaKemi floor cleaner (which was really nice — dear BonaKemi — have you considered going cruelty-free?  Because then I could buy your floor care products again, and I’d really appreciate it!) came in these really nice spray bottles, so I could spray a very fine mist over the floor.  You’re not supposed to EVER let water pool on hardwood floors, so the Method Floor Cleaner stream of floor cleaner worries me because it leaves these heavy streaks of liquid on the floor.  Method people — that is not good!  It ruins the finish!  Also, the streaks of liquid make it difficult to slide the Method O Mop on the floor — the alternating patches of dry floor and wet floor do NOT lead to an even glide.  Whereas the fine spray of liquid from the BonaKemi spray bottle lets the Method O Mop glide over the floor nicely.

I also think the nozzle wastes a lot of cleaning liquid — the microfiber of the mop soaks up the puddles it comes to, instead of using that liquid to clean the floor, whereas a fine spray of liquid lets the microfiber of the mop clean the floor but not soak up the cleanser and then go all soggy.  I also do not know what crack the Method people are on saying the nozzle on this bottle is “shower style” and covers the floor in a few simple sweeps.  It most emphatically does NOT do that.  No matter how much I fiddle with the top, it releases a single stream of liquid.  Seriously.  It’s just like the top of expensive water bottles — no matter what you do with those you can’t make them “shower.”  If you somehow manage to get the thing to be barely open, it will give off a few tiny bubbles.  Not useful at all, if you ask me.

Luckily, I do have a solution for this — I’m almost at the end of a spray bottle of Method All Purpose Spray, (which I go through really fast), so as soon as that is empty I’m going to pour the rest of the Method Wood For Good Floor Cleaner into it and use it to spray the floors instead.  While I wait for the day Method releases this floor cleaner in a spray bottle!

(Method products are 100%-animal testing free, vegan, but not organic.)

Method Wood for Good Floor Cleaner is $6 at the Method Online Store or your local Target.

Method wood for good® floor cleaner
no-wax, no-nonsense floor cleaning polish
smells so good, you practically want to eat off the floor. we don’t recommend it. but it is good to know this no-wax formula is non-toxic and biodegradable. makes you want to throw out the timer on that whole 5-second rule. plus, the ergonomically designed shower-nozzle spray covers your floors in fewer sweeps and helps avoid puddling.

Non-toxic and biodegradable cleaners (including baking soda) mean that no hazardous residues will stay behind when you clean your floor, making it safe for pets, people and the planet. It’s also a DfE recognized formula and a 100% recycled plastic bottle.
Ingredients: baking soda, non-toxic and biodegradable solvent, color, biodegradable and non-toxic surfactants, fragrance oil blend, purified water, potassium hydrate
preservative (under 0.1%).

poll by twiigs.com

I feel like this is one of the few things I’m extremely qualified to judge — I have bought not one, not two, but THREE poor excuses for microfiber mopping devices. Though technically one was the swiffer, which really isn’t a microfiber mop thing, it’s more a huge waste of trees and money bad for the environment kind of paper mop/sweepy thing, which I gave up a few years ago because I hated paying for the (expensive) disposable mopping things, of which it usually took four to clean my (tiny) apartment at the time. But I thought the swiffer itself was perfectly fine — just overpriced with all the disposable mop heads, so I gave it away and bought a Bona Kemi mop.

The Bona Kemi microfiber mop was awful. It didn’t maneuver very well, and usually managed to unscrew parts of itself while mopping — it was just a very poorly designed mop. The handle is made of four parts, and they all screw together, so if you apply the slightest pressure counterclockwise, one of them will come unscrewed. If not the part where the handle screws into the base, which is also prone to becoming unscrewed. It’s just a nightmare. I really didn’t care for it (though the Bona Kemi floor cleaning solutions were excellent, and I think the Bona Kemi people were totally ahead of their time — the first microfiber mops I ever saw were Bona Kemi, and the microfiber parts were very high quality. I think I might have a few of them left around and I’m hoping they will work with the O Mop so I can keep using them — they seem pretty similar.)

So, after the Bona Kemi fiasco, I moved on to the Real Simple microfiber mop. This one was definitely better constructionwise than the Bona Kemi mop — the handle was one solid piece of metal! It only had the part where the handle screws into the base that would become unscrewed if pressure was applied in a clockwise direction! So it was less prone to self-destructing, but it was still a little difficult to maneuver — not only could you not apply much counterclockwise pressure, but it also was very inflexible so it wouldn’t go very far under edges of tables, and the base was kind of curved upwards instead of lying flush to the floor, so it has to have constant pressure applied downwards or it would not actually pick anything up. So you can see — these features made it not as maneuverable as it could be. So I ended up promenading around my house pulling a microfiber mop in a pattern of parallel lines to get the floor clean — I always felt like I was mowing a lawn or something. It was just insane. So I ended up not really using it that much. Though I’ve had it for the past two years and used it weekly (ha! more like monthly) because I wanted to get some use out of it before ditching it.

However, a few days ago I was at Target and I could not resist buying the O Mop. It was in the Method section, and I needed to buy more wood floor cleaner (my Bona Kemi wood floor cleaner finally ran out!), and I’ve never been very happy with the Real Simple microfiber mop, so the O Mop magically found its way into my cart.

My first impression of the O Mop was good. I took it home, and put it together, and it seems much more sturdily made than the Real Simple or Bona Kemi mops, and much more aerodynamic and cool-looking. The parts chink together and just looking at them you know they’re not going to fall apart if you accidentally maneuver the mop counterclockwise.

Then . . . I swept my ENTIRE HOUSE in about FIVE minutes with the microfiber attachment (1500 sq feet? something like that). Usually it takes me 20 minutes with the highly annoying Real Simple mop that has the maneuverability of a lawn mower. This Method one though it’s like I stand in the center of the room, swish the mop around me in a giant circle, and the mop uses its own weight to glide over the floor and pick up all the dog hair (you have no idea how much dog hair my dog produces — it’s frightening) and dirt that coat the floor in a few seconds, and the room is clean! I managed to clean the area behind the toilet while standing two feet away from it, with one hand! The Real Simple mop required my standing with one knee on the toilet, and two hands trying to maneuver the wretched base of the Real Simple mop behind the base of the toilet, and then having the base of the mop fall off at some point because you have to twist the mop counterclockwise to get it out from behind there. It was aggravating.

So I’m a complete convert. I really didn’t think the O Mop would be that much better than the Real Simple mop — I figured anything HAD to be slightly better because that thing doesn’t even seem to have a mop surface that is parallel to the ground. But the O Mop is a lot better.

So I HIGHLY recommend this mop. If you’re still using one of those wretched bucket contraptions, seriously, you need to buy one of these. (Microfiber mops are so much less trouble than bucket mops — and they’re much better for wooden floors than bucket mops because those leave huge puddles of water on your (expensive) hardwood floor, and that’s bad for it. You can prolong the life of your floor finish by using a microfiber mop, the floor dries a lot faster, and if you use it dry it makes an excellent broom. Though you should still keep your bucket mop for the really heavy jobs — microfiber isn’t good for soaking/scrubbing caked on filth.)

(Method products are cruelty-free and vegan — but not organic.)

The Method O Mop is available for $30 at the Method Online Store, your local Target, or Orchard Supply and Hardware. It comes in two starter kits — one is for hardwood floors, the other is for nonwood floors. The “wood for good” starter kit contains 1 wet/dry microfiber mop pad that velcroes on to the mop base, 3 compostable sweeping cloths (I think these are pointless — just use the wet/dry microfiber pad and buy a few more — you’ll save a lot of money in the long run), and a 14 oz container of Method wood floor cleaner. The “all floor starter kit” contains 1 wet/dry all floor microfiber mop pad, 3 compostable sweeping cloths and a 14 oz container of Method all floor cleaner.