Shark Steam & Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK Review: Mopping made easy

With its automatic steam control and dual spinning cloths, the Shark Steam & Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK makes mopping hard floors – even with tough stains, easy. It’s simple to use and glides across the floor, with the only minor issue that it can’t get into corners. Given how well it cleans, a little bit of manual work on the corners seems like a fair trade.

Introduction

Steam mops are a gentle way of cleaning floors, using steam and microfibre pads to remove dirt without the need for detergent. In general, all require you to use a bit of elbow grease to remove tough stains, which is where the Shark Steam & Scrub Automatic Steam Mop S6002UK comes in. 

With its dual spinning microfibre cloths, this steam mop does the hard work for you. It’s well priced, works well and is gentle on floors. My only complaint is that it can’t quite get into corners as well as a regular steam mop.

Design and features

• Comes with four mop pads that attach securely
• Easy controls on the front
• Stands up by itself

I’ve been impressed with Shark’s previous steam mops, including the excellent Shark Klik n’ Flip Automatic Steam Mop S6003UK. The Shark S6002UK sports a similar design to that model, with a long and tall mop body that’s home to the 0.35-litre water tank. This flips open for filling with the provided jug. 

So far, so similar – but take a look at the bottom of the mop and the real differences are revealed. Here, instead of a single mop pad, the S6002UK features two round microfibre cloths, attached to two spinning discs that rotate at 150rpm.

That’s similar to the AirCraft PowerGlide, although that model uses detergent sprayed on the floor, using its cloths to mop up the mess afterwards. I found that the PowerGlide also had one slight issue: it was hard to line up the cloths evenly, so they generally span in a slightly wobbly way.

Here, Shark has used a clever plastic attachment on its mop cloths, so they click into exactly the right place. They’re easy to swap, and you get a total of four cloths in the box, which should cover you for cleaning an entire home.

Once attached, the S6002UK will stand up without support, or be stable while leaning against the wall. Shark’s Klik n’ Flip is a little unstable, and I generally lie it down to stop it from falling over.

Using the Shark S6002UK is easy. Just plug it in using the long 8m power cable, and choose the mode you want: Light or Normal. The difference between the two is in the automatic steam control: Light for wood, vinyl and laminate; Normal for stone, tile or – if you’re super-rich – marble.

It takes less than a minute for the cleaner to heat up and for steam to be produced, at which point you just tilt the handle back and the cleaning pads start to spin. Since they’re constantly moving, the S6002UK glides across the floor, but it’s better to work with the direction of movement than against it.

You can dash around furniture and get right up against the wall, but the round pads won’t get all the way into corners in the same way that the S6003UK does with its flat mop head. It means that you’ll need to do corners by hand from time to time.

Performance

• Quickly cleans typically dirty floors
• Works well on tough patches given time

I tested the Shark S6002UK on my kitchen floor, which is light in colour and suffers from three cats walking over it, plus dropping food onto it. That gives me a variety of dirt to tackle.

First, the lighter stains, from general mud. Here, the S6002UK zoomed over the mess, quickly whisking it up. It took very little effort and I found that I was just gently balancing the handle, while the machine did most of the work. It was pretty quick to dash around the kitchen in this way, giving me a clean floor at the end.

Next, I tackled the area around where the cats eat. Here, they drop food onto the floor and it can set quite hard. This took the S6002UK more time to deal with, but holding the pads over the mess and gently moving it around shifted everything.

I found that the S6002UK was easier to use than the S6003UK. The latter has a steam burst option for dealing with tough messes, but doing this and then using a bit more brute force to clean up takes more time and effort.

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