Shark Lift-Away Professional Steam Pocket Mop review

Although the Shark Lift-Away looks like a traditional steam mop, its name gives away the secret: there’s a lift out cleaner in the middle, which means that you can use this cleaner as a hand-held model, too. Given this flexibility, the Lift-Away looks as though it can offer the best of both worlds: proper hard floor cleaning and close-up detail cleaning in any situation. Through the Expert Reviews tests, I find out if it really can deliver everything.

Design

The overall look and design of the Shark Lift-Away would best be described as unique. Following the curvy style of the rest of the Shark line, the Lift-Away looks unlike any other steam mop out there. The circular handle, while interesting, isn’t particularly comfortable to use, though, giving me hand ache pretty early on during testing. This really isn’t helped by the whopping 3kg weight of the mop itself.

It’s also unable to stand up on its own, thanks to the loose hinge connecting the mop base to the steamer. An upright steam cleaner really should stand upright on its own, such as the Vileda Steam Mop, letting you take a break during cleaning without finding something to lean it against.

You’ve got three different steam settings on the Lift-Away, designed to be used for different cleaning situations. The dust, mop and scrub settings can be used for different floor surfaces, with varying power settings. It also has plenty of attachments to be used for wall surfaces, including a squeegee and steam nozzle. You can also use the Lift-Away on carpet, thanks to the supplied carpet glider, although it wasn’t particularly effective and was a battle to push about.

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Despite the 0.3-litre tank capacity, which remarkably heats up in only 30 seconds, the Shark Lift-Away barely gave me 10 minutes of steam time, and I had to head back to the sink after just 8 minutes on the highest steam setting. A little light does let you know that the Lift-Away is turned on. You can always open the water cap to refill when you want. Thankfully the water tank doesn’t heat up the exterior of the steam mop, unlike with the Morphy Richards 12-in-1, so there’s no risk of burnt hands, so long as you don’t open the tank up.

Cleaning performance

With no manual control, you can’t directly alter the amount of steam that comes out of the Shark Lift-Away, with steam coming out automatically. When ridding hard flooring of some difficult breakfast stains, the steam mop definitely struggled. I found that the two weaker settings, dust and mop, were quite feeble at getting rid of any stains, so I largely opted to use the scrub setting during use.

The reversible rectangular mop head proved to be quite useful. It’s two-sided with a mop head for wetter jobs and a scrub head for tougher stains. It can be flipped around in an instant, depending on your needs.

The mop head pushed a lot of dirt around, making more mess which sometimes felt like a losing battle. Steam output was pretty low even on the highest setting, struggling to clean dirt and stains on the floor. I had to put a fair amount of effort into it; steam cleaners are supposed to be effortless, but the Lift-Away didn’t get rid of the stains as much as I’d have hoped, especially considering the high cost. The Vileda Steam Mop is considerably cheaper and cleaned floors much more effectively with very little effort.

The Shark Lift-Away can be used as a steam cleaner for wall surfaces, thanks to the detachable water tank plugged directly into the mains. There are plenty of attachments to use and it should be able to handle any steam cleaning scenario. Cleaning grout from tiles was relatively easy and is definitely the better side of the Lift-Away.

Conclusion

Taking its price into consideration, there are much better and cheaper steam cleaning alternatives out there. The premium steam mop surprisingly works best just as a handheld steam cleaner, so you’d be much better suited with the Karcher SC1, which is considerably cheaper. Alternatively, the Vileda Steam Mop is a better choice for tackling heavy duty, dried on, floor stains, which the Lift-Away really struggled with. For other choices, read my guide to the best steam cleaners.

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