Black Friday is coming soon – and deals have already dropped

Black Friday is without a doubt the biggest shopping event of the year. With millions of discounts to be had across everything from TVs, laptops, gaming, and tech to mattresses, home appliances, beauty, fashion, and toys, it’s the best time to bag a bargain. Almost every brand takes part, think Zara, Charlotte Tilbury, Missoma, Nintendo, Lego, Ninja and many more. Similarly, retailers go large, with the likes of Amazon, Argos, Boots, Currys, John Lewis & Partners, and Next all slashing their prices considerably on big-ticket items. The shopping bonanza initially started in the US as a way for brands to mark the start of the Christmas shopping season the day after Thanksgiving. The Black Friday 2022 sale will officially start on Friday 25 November and run across the entire weekend until the following Monday – dubbed Cyber Monday – when the sale event ends. But many retailers and brands have started dropping discounts weeks in advance, notably, Boots kicked off its Black Friday sale on 1 November, while Dyson followed suit by starting off nice and early, with £100 off its popular vacuum cleaners. As the discerning deal-hunters that we are, IndyBest is on hand during the shopping event to bring you all the biggest and best deals across the board. Ahead of Black Friday 2022, here you’ll find everything you need to know, from important dates to the deals you can shop now. Read more: Our team of crack testers has reviewed everything from cordless vacuums to robot models, so it’s fair to say we know a thing or two about the ones that really stand out. In our in-depth review of the Dyson v10 absolute, our writer praised its excellent range of motion and long battery life on the basic mode. ‘If you haven’t already gathered, we love this vacuum cleaner,’ they said, adding ‘the swivel motion on the head is seamless and gets around even the trickiest of corners without complaint.’ Thanks to Dyson’s early Black Friday deal, you can get this vacuum while it’s £100 cheaper.Buy nowAir fryers are a hot commodity at the moment, so, naturally, as soon as we saw this early Black Friday deal on this Ninja appliance, we had to share. In our in-depth review of this model, our tester noted the Ninja foodi max multi-cooker is the ‘biggest and most function-packed model’ the brand does. Our tester found it produced ‘great results’, and the ‘air fryer basket also rendered perfect sweet-potato fries in no time’. Buy nowThere’s £50 to be saved on the Pure air go, which took the top spot in our round-up of best electric scooters. Our tester noted it ‘strikes an uncompromising balance between value, battery life, comfort, and build quality’. What’s more, the ‘IP65 water resistance – a grade above most other scooters we’ve tested – means you can confidently zip through puddles without damaging any of the sensitive electronics inside, making it a great choice for anyone who wants to continue riding during the wetter winter months’. Buy nowBoots has also kicked off its Black Friday deals a whole month early, and this mascara instantly caught our eye. Propelled to fame thanks to TikTok, Maybelline’s popular product featured in our round-up of the best mascaras, with our writer noting the ‘long, thin and flexible brush head combines a formula of bamboo extract and fibres that builds volume and length with each stroke, but also separates lashes for a fanned-out look’. They added that the formula of the lash sensational sky high mascara ‘outshines the rest’.Buy nowJust like other gadgets in the Echo smart-speaker range, the Echo dot features the all-knowing Alexa voice assistant. You can use it to play music, set timers, drop in and call other Amazon Echo users, control smart home devices, play games, access apps and much more. The device found its way into our round-up of the best smart speakers, with our writer saying: ‘If you’re an Alexa user, or dipping your toe into the world of smart speakers, the Echo dot is a great choice for a non-invasive speaker that produces great sound and slots nicely into the Amazon ecosystem.’Buy nowSearching for a Dyson airwrap Black Friday deal? Take it from us, your veteran sale shoppers, you may not find one. But Revlon’s one-step dryer is the perfect dupe. It landed a spot in our review of the best hot brushes, thanks to its ‘affordability and the oodles of volume it delivers’. With a whopping 50 per cent saving, it’s time to snap it up and call off the airwrap deal search.Buy nowBlack Friday mattress deals are some of the best. And, luckily, everyone’s favourite bed-in-a-box brand Emma has kicked off deals early. This mattress is currently reduced by 55 per cent, which is quite something, considering it received rave reviews in our guide to the best mattresses. The ‘isolation was excellent, but we were also impressed with how well it regulated our temperature’, praised our tester. If you want to sleep in a ‘bubble of bliss’, this is the bed for you. Buy nowIn the market for a new electric toothbrush? This Oral-B design is currently half price and it has a number of impressive features that make cleaning your gnashers a breeze. It has pressure control that alerts you if you brush too hard, along with three different brushing modes and a battery that lasts more than two weeks. While we haven’t tested this exact one, a number of Oral-B models feature in our guide to the best electric toothbrushes, so you can be confident you’re buying from a quality brand. For more information on early discounts on electric toothbrushes, hair tools, and so much more, check out our guide to the best Black Friday beauty deals.Buy nowBlack Friday home appliances deals are often very impressive, and Currys is treating shoppers to a saving of more than 30 per cent on this Breville device, which was named the best bean-to-cup machine in our review of the best espresso machines. Our tester praised the barista max for being ‘easy to set up and operate’, they also found that it is ‘not nearly as noisy as expected, even when grinding whole beans’. Most importantly, it ‘makes a superb cup of coffee, whether an espresso or latte’. Buy nowIf you’re yet to shop during Black Friday, you’re in for a real treat. The shopping event started in the US as a one-day event the day after Thanksgiving, offering people the chance to get their Christmas shopping done. But now, it’s a worldwide affair, with huge discounts on offer. Many UK retailers take part and slash the prices of big-name brands, including Apple, Dyson, Shark, KitchenAid, LG, Nintendo, Asos, Flannels, Sky and more. Similarly, brands also get involved, last year, for example, we saw the likes of Gymshark, Lululemon, Pandora, Hotel Chocolat, Ugg, Philips, Dr Martens and Charlotte Tilbury slash their prices.For more intel on who takes part, read our extensive guide to the brands and retailers that offered hefty discounts last year for Black Friday. The date of Black Friday 2022 in the UK is 25 November. But, for most brands and retailers, the sale spans the weekend until the following Monday, known as Cyber Monday. That being said, each year, retailers and brands that take part in the big Black Friday sale start their deal events earlier and earlier. The likes of Boots, Currys, Argos, and Dyson have already kicked off their sales with some impressive deals, and you can expect Amazon to follow suit. While this may sound daunting, this guide will be on hand throughout the event. The Black Friday sales in 2022 will officially start on Friday 25 November. However, as we’ve touched on, a huge number of brands and retailers have already kicked things off, really ramping up the excitement for the big day itself. Cyber Monday is the following Monday after Black Friday, and will therefore be held on Monday 28 November in 2022. It’s traditionally an online-only event, but many deals are now also available in-store. It serves as your last chance to bag a bargain across tech, coffee machines, air fryers, gaming, TVs, and laptops.Traditionally, Black Friday was hosted online and in-store, while Cyber Monday used to be exclusively an online shopping event. But now, this isn’t the case, so there’s not much difference between the two events.In terms of the difference in deals, some of the best discounts on big-ticket items may sell out before Cyber Monday. But, this isn’t always the case.Due to an ongoing dispute over pay and conditions, Royal Mail workers will strike throughout November. Unfortunately for shoppers, that means there could be a delay in deliveries during the sale event. Workers announced they will stage two 48-hour strikes around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The exact dates are Thursday 24 November, Friday 25 November (Black Friday) and Monday 28 November (Cyber Monday). Owing to being the best and biggest shopping event of the year, it can feel overwhelming trying to navigate the discounts on offer. To help ensure you make the most of the best Black Friday deals, our crack team of deal hunters will be on hand, as always. Leading up to and throughout the shopping bonanza, we’ll be reporting on all the news and intel, and we’ll even launch a liveblog where you’ll find minute-by-minute updates on all the best deals. Black Friday 2021 was a momentous occasion, as it always is. During the shopping bonanza, our team handpicked some of the biggest and best deals, which of course we will do this year. Below is a selection of the top offers we saw – some of which we expect to see this year too.During the Black Friday shopping event last year, we saw some particularly impressive savings on TVs from Samsung, Philips, Toshiba, LG and more.For example, the LG OLED65C14LB 65in smart 4K ultra HD TV (Ao.com) was reduced from £2,499 to £1,696, which was a particularly impressive deal.Similarly, the Sony Bravia KE65A8/P 65in OLED TV (Amazon.co.uk), which was named ‘best for audio’ in our review of the best 4K televisions, saw a whopping 30 per cent discount. If it’s gaming devices you’re after, last year the price of the Nintendo Switch saw a rare discount. The Nintendo Switch bundle with Just Dance (Amazon.co.uk) was reduced to the lowest price we’d ever seen it in. With the console going from £301 to just £273.99.The Nintendo Switch OLED bundle with Paper Mario: The Origami King (£319.99, Game.co.uk) was reduced by £30, and while this might not be considered a huge saving, the console had only just been released at the time, so it was quite something to see it in the sale at all.Laptops are undeniably a large investment, so it pays to shop around during sale events. Luckily, Black Friday offers the perfect time to bag a bargain on popular and powerful laptops.Last year, we saw the Apple MacBook pro (£1,725, Amazon.co.uk), have a sizeable £100 discount. This was particularly impressive because at the time it was the latest and greatest MacBook pro with the then-new M1 Pro chip and launched only a month prior.Another great discount was on the Huawei matebook D 15 (Huawei.com), which features in our review of the best laptops for students. The device was reduced from £529.99 to £379.99, so we expect to see a similar range of discounts across Huawei’s impressive laptops this year.Known for its impressive beauty tech, as well as vacuum cleaners, discounts on Dyson’s products are hugely popular. Unfortunately, we didn’t see a deal on the Dyson airwrap during the Black Friday sale, but there was still a huge range of discounts available. Boots offered customers £10 worth of Advantage Card points when they spent £60 more on electrical beauty, which included the Dyson supersonic hair dryer (£329.99, Boots.com) and the corrale straightener (£399.99, Boots.com).If you’re interested in the Dyson floorcare deals, the V11 absolute cordless vacuum cleaner (£625, Argos.co.uk) was reduced to £439.99, which is quite something considering the fact that the appliance came out on top when we compared it to the Dyson V7 model in our review. Similarly, the Dyson V8 saw a whopping discount, which made the vacuum cleaner cost less than £200.Gaming discounts are a huge deal during Black Friday. If you’re interested in knowing what was on offer last year, of course, we’ve already mentioned the Nintendo Switch savings, but that wasn’t the only gaming device that was discounted.Those buying the Oculus quest 2 virtual reality headset (£399, Currys.co.uk) during Black Friday benefitted from the fact the device cost just £299 and came with a free £50 voucher. We’re hoping to see a similar offer this year, but it’s all to play for. While the Razer blackshark v2 X wired gaming headset (£39.99, Amazon.co.uk) saw a hefty saving in Amazon’s Black Friday event. The headset was reduced by 40 per cent off, making it just £35.99. From vacuum cleaners and steam cleaners to air fryers and stand mixers, you can expect to see some huge savings across home appliances. If 2021’s event is anything to go by, you’re likely to be very impressed with this year’s deals too.Star bakers were able to benefit from 25 per cent off the popular KitchenAid stand mixer last year, which was particularly impressive considering the appliance retails at £599.99.Similarly as great was the fact that the Tefal actifry genius+ FZ773840 air fryer (£159, Currys.co.uk) saw such a huge price reduction, so much so, it cost just £99 on Black Friday.The Currys Black Friday sale included hundreds of deals on a whole host of products, including coffee machines, headphones, air fryers, and tablets, so it truly spoiled its customers for choice.The Echo dot (£22.99, Currys.co.uk) was on offer for £18.99 from £39.99, but that wasn’t the only smart speaker to be discounted, because the retailer also slashed the price of the Apple HomePod mini (£89, Currys.co.uk) from £89 to just £69. Similarly, the Google nest mini (£49, Currys.co.uk) cost just £18 on Black Friday. Away from smart speakers, there was a whole host of other deals to benefit from. For example, those who were in th