BlogHer Review: Libman Freedom! Mop

I’ve mentioned before my feelings on mops, yes?   Anything I can’t take off and wash grosses me out.   I won’t buy disposable pads just to throw away my money and take out more trash.  For the past few years I have been using a disposable-pad mop, but employing microfiber auto rags instead of the paper refill pads.  It worked great and I had no complaints.  Well, you know how sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing until you find something better?  Yeah, enter Libman Freedom Mop and its friends.


When Libman offered to send me this mop package to review, site unseen, I decided I would be brutally honest.  I assumed I wouldn’t like it as well as the status quo mop situation in this house.  I didn’t want a disgusting germ/slime magnet, and I didn’t want to have to go the store whenever I need to mop my floors.  When the Libman mop arrived, I may have squealed.   It was perfect, my dream mop, or close.  There are some things I don’t love, but we’ll get to that in a minute…

Years ago, as a young wife, I actually asked for a spraying mop for my birthday.  True story.  I wanted one that badly.  I was sick of filling a bucket or the sink, and sick of wringing things as I moped.  My husband, ever the romantic, made that wish come true and I unwrapped a spray mop (from the plastic grocery bag it came in) for my 23rd birthday.  But I only used it for a few weeks before giving up on the spray feature because I was sick of buying the disposable proprietary solution canisters.  But while it lasted, Oh! how I enjoyed its spraying, n0-bucket-or-sink-of-disgustingness virtues! 
Well guess what?  The Libman Freedom mop takes the awesomeness of a spray mop and ads the *genius*, and practicality, of an empty bottle. 

What’s so great about an empty bottle?  You can fill it up with whatever you want!  This is especially important for freaks like me who have very specific needs when it comes to how a mopped floor should smell; two words: piney and soly.
I know a lot of you make your own cleaning solutions.  You can mix them right up inside the bottle.  The opening is fairly wide and there are measurement markings down each side for ratio control.

The other love? A reusable, washable microfiber pad with *scrubbers*.  This was actually something I missed when using the auto rags—a decent scrubbing quality.  The Libman pads have strips of, like, Astroturf in them-very scrubby. (fun fact: My aunt’s entire back patio was carpeted in plastic grass carpet.  The rug-burns of my childhood can attest to the abrasive qualities of the stuff!)(Though still gentle on floors.)(But seriously? Not on knees.) 
I think I would have preferred the Astroturf to be all in one area, like to one side, to allow for more concentrated scrubbing.  But it did end up easily getting tw0-day dried syrup off the tile, so what do I know?

The pads attach to the mop base via these crazy hooks covering the naked base on the flat side. 

So you just slap it on there, with no pushing anything through little rubber grabber things that also sometimes catch your finger and make you swear.  Just lay the pad down, smooth, and go. 

And while we’re on the subject of the mop head, it swivels and pivots so you can mop in awkward areas.  Like behind toilets.  Also, it’s long enough, I could get the first few inches of the under part of my stove without moving anything.  And since that’s all anyone sees, I can pretend for a while longer that any mess further back doesn’t exist. 

The mop comes with one pad, and you can purchase additional pads for rotating when the others are in the wash.

Fancy.  And so thoughtful.

You can also purchase an additional bottle.  I would think this would be really nice if you had various kinds of hard surface flooring?  Like, tile in one area and hard wood in the other.  With an additional bottle, you can switch out your cleaning agent depending on the surface.  We only have ceramic tile and cheap-o, ugly linoleum, so this isn’t really a huge selling point for me, personally, but I can see where it could be really handy for others.   

The extra bottle comes with a  stand so you can store the leftover solution.  The bottle itself has a rubberized plug-friend thingy that seals the dispenser opening when not inserted into the mop itself, so it doesn’t leak. 

Again, thoughtful and convenient if you need to have multiple solutions ready to go.  But one of my dislikes is actually the stand the extra bottle comes with.  It doesn’t seem very stable.  Not that the bottle leaks when it falls out, but still kind of annoying.  Mine kept getting knocked over on my counter.  And with flat horizontal surfaces at a premium in my closets and cabinets, I would have preferred something wall-mounting. 

But onto more good stuff.  How about that even my five year old can now mop up the apple juice he is constantly spilling, since he doesn’t ever have to handle the hot water/chemicals?  He can even carry it upstairs to do the bathrooms by himself.  Awesome.  Now to just get him to control that over-anxious trigger finger. 

And finally, back to the pads.  Here is what the once-pristine-and-white new pad looked like after moping my kitchen and two bathrooms.  I have three little boys.  Don’t judge.  Okay, go ahead, just don’t comment it.  Please.

And after being washed with our other rags?  The one on top is the same pad as the above picture, the bottom pad is a new, unused pad

No, I didn’t use bleach, just my regular detergent.  I’m sure a few more weeks of hard labor in our house will dingy it right up, but I have no doubt it will still clean the floors.  Just maybe not look so pretty doing it.  But the same can be said for me, so I’m casting no stones.

AND
YOU can win a$100 Visa Gift Card from BlogHer and a Libman Freedom Spray Mop from Libman (all to go to one winner), open to those 18 and up, USA residents
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You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
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b)      Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c)       Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d)      For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
 
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
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You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.      

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