Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Design Your Engagement Ring - What You Need to Know About Diamonds

So, you'd like to design your engagement ring...
But guess what?
You need to know a few things first, and one of the big things you need to know is diamonds. You at the very least need a basic understanding of what to look for in a diamond. What's important and what's not.
In this article I'll go over what is commonly referred to as the 4 Cs:
Carat weight, Cut, Clarity, and Color.
Alright?
So, let's start by going over Carat weight. This is a measurement of a stone's weight. Obviously the bigger the better, but there are a few things to keep in mind regarding Carat weight.
First is, and this seems obvious, but as you go up in weight, it gets much more expensive. A 2 Carat diamond will cost you up to $20K, where as a 1 Carat diamond will cost you around $1 - 4k. So as you can see, the cost rises exponentially.
The second thing to keep in mind is that when you design your engagement ring it's much more important to have a pure, clear diamond than a big one. You should spend extra money on improving the quality of your diamond, not the size.
Alright, second is Color. This is a measurement of the tint of your ring. A D, E or F colored diamond will be VERY pure, and really anything at a G or less will be virtually perfect, it would take an advanced jeweler to detect any difference.
Past a G however, you may be able to discern very slight differences in color. This isn't a big deal, but keep in mind that when you design your engagement ring, if you're diamond is a little bit discolored, you're going to want a yellow gold setting, because this will make the diamond appear to be more white.
Conversely, if your diamond is very pure, you'll want a white gold setting to enhance it's brightness, a yellow gold setting will actually make the diamond appear tainted.
Third is Clarity. This is the measure of a diamonds perfection, or in other words how many and what type of inclusions your diamond has. Basically the system starts at Fl (flawless) and goes all the way to I1, I2, and I3.
This isn't something that you REALLY need to worry about when you design your engagement ring, anything under VS (Very small inclusions) is going to appear perfect, and it's not hard to find a diamond like that.
Lastly comes cut. This is commonly confused with shape, but it's actually not the same thing. Diamond cut is a measure of the diamonds symmetry. This is probably the least important aspect when you design your engagement ring, as even the worst cut diamond is going to still appear virtually perfect to an unexperienced or unprofessional eye.
Diamond shape is something that's completely a matter of preference, although if you're unsure of your partner's preferences, it's probably safe to go with either a round or princess cut.
I hope that helped you out! I'm guessing though that you'd like to learn a little more about diamonds and jewelry, so here's what I'm going to do for you:
I'm going to recommend you to a site I found that does a really great job of explaining EVERYTHING you need to know to design your engagement ring.
What you should do is check out all the info on this site, then when you're ready to design your engagement ring, just click the "Build-Your-Ring" button at the top, and you'll go straight to their ring builder.
I really recommend you take a peek at this site: DesignRingEngagement.com
All the information on there is free, I just wanted to give you something I thought would help you out.

No comments:

Post a Comment