Every day, you see a commercial for some wonder cleaning marvel.  “Throw out that old mop,” they proclaim.  “This mop is the wave of the future because of its revolutionary shape/construction/material!”  But are they really better than the standard “mass of cotton cords” mop that we all know by heart and instantly identify as the Platonic idea of a mop?  Well, in some ways, it depends on what kind of job you’ve got.  The New York Times put a wide variety of mops to the test to find out the results.

As it turns out, one of your better mop options is the same mop we all grew up with.  The classic, boring old string mop (from Lanier) turned out to be one of the better well-rounded mops, adept at handling both light work and heavy liquid soaking jobs.  Kind of a jack of all trades, master of none.  Plus it was cheaper than most of the other options.

However, if you need to clean up a wide variety of spills as best as possible, then you might need to take up an assortment of mops.  The best of the modern mixed with the traditional seems to be the O Cedar Microfiber Cloth Mop, which takes super-absorbent space-age materials and combines them with the traditional mop design for the best of both worlds.