42 Best Expert-Recommended Black Friday Deals

By Kelsie Schrader, managing editor at the Strategist.  She also conducts interviews for “The Look Book.”

Black Friday is here. To find the best deals in every category, follow all of our Black Friday coverage. 

Maybe you’ve noticed: We go hard covering Black Friday at the Strategist. It’s arguably the best day (or, more accurately, week) of the year for sales, so we do our best to point you toward the very best ones. Each of our writers has spent hours sifting through the thousands of deals and rounding up the best in their areas of expertise, including fashion deals, beauty deals, home deals, tech deals, and more. We’ve also gone through the sales at mega-retailers like Amazon and Nordstrom to find all the best deals, and we’ve done a few deep dives to find what’s worth buying from a few especially good sales, including at Lululemon and Sephora.

Suffice to say, we’ve found just about every good Black Friday deal out there. But for those who’d prefer a short list of the absolute best deals in each category, we’ve asked each of our writers to name the three deals they think are the most worth it. You can find their picks below, but we’ve also linked to their in-depth roundups in case you’d like to see all the deals they’ve found.

Daly has been rounding up the best Black Friday deals for a few weeks now (since they start well in advance of Black Friday these days), so she’s had time to compare them all and pick out her absolute favorites. Those include the deepest discount she’s seen all year on Naturium products, a now-$26 cashmere beanie that was a top Christmas gift last year, and the just-released Kindle Paperwhite e-reader that features wireless charging.

The Black Friday fashion deals are truly abundant — Pardilla has already found over 100 deals from over 20 Strategist-approved retailers — but her top picks from her list are all cozy and under $30. A pair of Free People shorts at Nordstrom is at the top of her list, because “you never see anything going for $14 from Free People.” Also included: the cherry-red Old Navy sweatpants that are the platonic ideal of a good sweatpant (comfortable, cheap, and they have pockets) and Everlane’s Air Long-Sleeve Tee, which she calls lightweight and layerable but not too thin.

Corsillo has been the Strategist’s toy expert for over half a decade, so if anyone can spot a good deal on a good toy, it’s her. Of the several dozen Black Friday toy deals she’s found so far, she recommends Sarah’s Silks rainbow veil, which is just $8 and a toy that your kid will use for years to come; a 300-piece bag of Mega Bloks, a building-toy set she recommends in her guide to the best gifts for 1-year-olds; and Kavi, the Girl of the Year doll from 2023, because American Girl Dolls almost never go on sale.

You don’t have to line up in person at Best Buy to get a great Black Friday tech deal — now, you can get discounted laptops, vacuums, and video games from the comfort of your home. Jeremy Rellosa has rounded up all the best tech deals this year, but right now, his favorites are a pair of AirPods 2 for the lowest price they’ve ever been, an expert-recommended Dyson vacuum for more than half off, and Rellosa’s favorite fitness tracker for nearly 40 percent off.

There are several worth-it discounts in the Black Friday beauty deals section, whether you’re shopping for gifts for someone else or just stocking up on essentials for yourself. Dyson’s Supersonic hair dryer—Denton-Hurst’s favorite—is at its lowest price of the year right now. Necessarie’s body products are also a better-than-usual deal at 25 percent off right now. And if you’re willing to dig, you can find some Aesop and Le Labo stuff for 30 percent off Net-a-Porter.

The best kitchen items to buy on Black Friday are things that are “integral to cooking well and with greater ease day in and day out, for years to come,” Wartzman says. All three of these items do just that. Global makes Wartzman’s favorite chef’s knife, and the set below includes it along with a bread knife, serrated utility knife, and paring knife. “Trust me: Those are all the blades you’ll ever need,” she says. The Staub dishes are great workhorse baking dishes — and they’re over 60 percent off. And Made In’s skillets are “some of the highest quality I’ve ever had the pleasure of making meals in,” Wartzman says.

Of the 64 (and counting) Black Friday home deals Schwartz has found, there are three standouts: Our best overall sofa for the lowest price it’s ever been; the Little Green Bissell, our best portable carpet cleaner, which is never a bad buy when it’s discounted; and a shower curtain from one of our favorite brands, Quiet Town, for a remarkable 60 percent off.

There are tons of great sheet sets, blankets, and pillows on sale, but if you’re only going to buy one bedding item this Black Friday, Ro suggests splurging on a comforter. “Comforters — especially ones filled with down — are expensive, but they are one of those investment items you won’t regret,” she says. Several are up to 30 percent off right now, which equates to around $100 or more in savings. Ro suggests any of the three below, all from Strategist-approved brands.

Mattresses go on sale often, and often for about the same discounts — but that doesn’t mean this year’s Black Friday mattress discounts aren’t worth it, Jerden says. No matter what type of mattress you’re after, you’re guaranteed to find a good option on sale right now. But there are a few better-than-normal discounts, including Parachute’s Eco Comfort mattress, which rarely goes on sale and never for 30 percent off, and our favorite latex mattress for 40 percent off — a good deal for an otherwise very expensive mattress type.

Right now is the best time to buy a vacuum online, Druckman says, which is why we’ve dedicated an entire post to finding the best Black Friday vacuum deals. As Druckman herself is on the hunt for a new vacuum, her top picks are all models she’s considering — all half off and Strategist-approved.

If you have a strict budget for Black Friday shopping, start here: Goertzen has rounded up all the best Black Friday deals under $50. The three she’s considering herself are a few more of her favorite boxy white T-shirts, cereal bowls from Vancouver-based Fable to add to her existing dinnerware collection, and a cordless handheld vacuum from Strategist-approved brand Eufy.

Cyber Week is perhaps best known as the time to get your holiday shopping done — at a discount. But if you don’t have a list of gift ideas yet, Guo put together a list of the best things on sale for Black Friday that would make good gifts for anyone on your list. For the kids, Guo suggests sticking “a classic, cuddly teddy bear under the tree,” like this big 17-inch one that’s almost half off. For adults, Hay’s cordless portable lamp is currently 30 percent off at Design Within Reach. Guo says it would make for “a practical and design-forward gift for just about anybody.” And for “that special someone (or just yourself)”: Go for some jewelry from Studs, where everything is 30 percent off and already marked-down styles are an extra 30 percent off.

Megaretailers like Amazon are a good first stop on your Black Friday journey because they have tons of products on sale and, usually, flexible return policies, in case you change your mind. The biggest downside, though: There are truly thousands of deals to sort through. So Pariso sifted through them to find the ones truly worth your time. Her favorite finds are the TheraFace Pro skin-care device, currently discounted to $100, and giftable items like a Bluetooth speaker and Starface’s cute pimple patches.

Nordstrom is another great one-stop-shop retailer, and its Black Friday sale is reliably good. Griffiths, who has covered many a Nordstrom sale, found the best deals in every category — women’s fashion, men’s fashion, home, beauty, and more. But her top-three deals are a $200 Le Creuset Dutch oven, the cashmere beanie readers bought in droves last year, and a staple T-shirt bra from one of our favorite underwear brands, Natori.

The Strategist is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read about here. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.