In terms of popularity, Valentine’s Day is the most popular day of the year to get engaged (followed by Christmas Day & New Years).  Princess cut engagemet rings are the most popular style of engagement ring to buy.  These results are from a nationwide survey of retail jewelers. From a man’s persepective Valentine’s day is extremely good long term planning for the following reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

When you are planning on purchasing a diamond it is important that you know as much as possible about how diamonds are classified. Learning about diamonds is first learning about the “four Cs” of diamonds which are considered the most important grades and categories:

• Cut
• Clarity
• Color
• Carat weight

These are the criteria jewelers use when grading diamonds, and they’re the ones you’ll need to understand to buy the right diamond for you. Click on each bullet point to learn more.

Most are more interested in the proportions of the diamond as opposed to its shape when speaking of cut(Round Brilliant, Marquise, Pear, Princess, etc.) Every diamond regardless of its shape gets it brilliancy and scintillation (sometimes referred to as bling) by cutting and polishing the diamond facets to allow the maximum amount of light that enters through its top to be reflected and dispersed back through its top. A correctly cut, “well made”, stone allows light to enter the stone and bounce back out of the top almost like a mirror. As you can see if the angles are correct the light that enters is dispersed properly back through the diamond’s top facets.

When a stone is cut too shallow  or too deep the light that enters through the top is allowed to escape through the diamond’s bottom and does not allow the maximum beauty of the diamond to be realized.  If a diamond is cut to wide the light tries to exit the bottom.  If the diamond is cut to thin the light exits out of the sides. Click here to go back to diamond education.