Meet my great new love: the Lunaglow Wet and Dry vacuum
Spotless floors are my jam. But it’s easier said than achieved: I have one kid, two cats, and a new home that was seemingly last deep-cleaned when Grover Cleveland was in office. Couple that with stubborn piles of dirt, crumbs from kid-spilled snacks, clumps of cat hair from the aforementioned felines, and ever-present dust bunnies that all coalesce to coat our home in a thick, nearly impenetrable layer of goo.
The Swiffer, normally a handy and reliable cleaning tool, proved powerless against the sheer and unwavering layers of filth because no matter how many wet sheets you used, they came back foul. Constantly bending over to swap them out, seemingly with no end in sight, was painful, to say the least. But my backache was inversely proportional to my resolve. The task might seem Sisyphean, but I had to up my game. And I needed the right tools.
Let me backtrack a bit. Last year, we purchased a gorgeous home, albeit one that had layer upon layer upon layer of something on its floors. Whatever it was, it seemed impervious to ordinary human cleaning methods. The first time we traipsed through our new house with no shoes on, our feet turned a grayish-brown color I didn’t realize existed in nature. But I’ve never met a floor I couldn’t polish. So I bought what everyone hailed as the absolute, infallible mop: The Bissell SpinWave. It had two circular rings on the bottom to which you attached thick cloth mopping pads (removable and washable), plugged it in, sprayed cleaner on the floor, and let it do its thing. Rather than scrubbing away the nastiness, it moved a lot of dirt around. Over and over and over again. And that’s pretty much it.
My quest for spotless floors remained undeterred. But I’ve never met a floor I couldn’t polish. So after extensive research (surely the perfect mop had to be out there? Surely?), like Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, I met my great new love: The Lunaglow Nano: 3-in-1 Wet & Dry vacuum. Initially, I was dubious – I’d never heard of the brand and the whole concept seemed a bit like a too-perfect dating profile. This thing vacuumed? Cleaned? In tandem? And did so cordlessly?
Happily, this mop checks every box. Setting it up is a breeze; you simply fill the tank by adding the included cleaning pod and filling it up with water, and then attach it. You also attach the dirty water tank. Then, you put the mop on the included charging station and its LED display will tell you how much juice it has. The backlit water tank lets you know how full it is, a crystal LED display tells you how much power it has, and voice prompts alert you when it’s charging or cleaning.
In dry mode, it vacuums. In wet mode (or double water mode, for truly big messes) it vacuums and cleans. Meaning, first it sucks up whatever is on your floor, then it cleans said floor. You use the controls on the handle to determine what cleaning mode works for you. And when the dirty water tank is full, the mop lets you know to empty it. Piece of advice: Don’t do so on a full stomach, because when you see what it’s sucked up, you’re going to feel ill.
In terms of maneuverability, this mop is lightweight enough to be easily manageable and tall enough that you don’t have to hunch over or contort yourself to push it around. It easily takes corners and fits under most standard furniture (unless you have a sofa that’s truly close to the ground).
I did have a few quibbles with the Lunaglow. It’s loud. Think of a hairdryer running at max volume; that’s roughly how annoying it is. And because it does a lot of things at once, cordlessly, you don’t get an infinite run time. In fact, if you work the Lunaglow at max capacity, spraying cleaning fluid while vacuuming, you may get about 20 minutes out of it, depending on just how gross your floors are. And the charging station – well, it’s not going to win any design awards, but it gets the job done and fast. I also wish the mop didn’t rely on the brand’s cleaning pods, which you have to order separately once the intro pack runs out, but again, so be it.
Last weekend, one of my neat-freak friends came for dinner. She’s someone who won’t set foot in a less-than-perfect restaurant. And she took one look at my floors and said she’d eat off them. Lunaglow, my work here is done.