Diamond Shopping can be intimidating! It’s a huge investment and sometimes can feel overwhelming by all the options in the store. Where do you go to look? What do you even look for? Does she have a pinterest board? So many questions can be overwhelming. 

Lucky for you, I was in the diamond industry for 5 years and loved every second of it! It’s actually a part of what catalyzed me to be more involved in the wedding industry. Men would come in all confused, overwhelmed, and intimated about making one of the biggest purchases of their life. Lucky for them they had me a diamond expert to educate and help choose the most beautiful ring for their girlfriend. 

I always started by hearing their love story and what brought the two of them together. Because this is more than just a precious stone, this is a symbol of your commitment to one another. I wanted to make sure we found the perfect ring for her. 

Afterwards we would dive into the educational part where I would inform him all about the “4 C’s”. 

• Cut 
• Color
• Clarity 
• Carat Weight 

Cut: In my professional experience it is the most important. Cut has the greatest influence on the diamond’s sparkle! It is what determines how the light travels through the diamond.You want to have an “excellent” cut so the diamond has the most sparkle. 

Color: Color can go from “D” being the whitest to “Z” being the most yellow. 

Color is important but it all depends on your human eye if you see white or yellow diamond. Most people usually do anywhere from D-H and depending on the diamond you could get away with an I. I wouldn’t recommend a letter lower than that cause I could see the yellow in the diamond. Again this is why I urge DO NOT shop for a diamond online because what it says on the certificate does not mean that’s necessarily how the diamond looks in person. I can’t tell you countless times I had to order diamonds from another store and it looked good on paper and it was ugly stone in person. 

Clarity: 

Some would say it’s the least important but I would disagree. I would just keep this in mind with clarity if you can’t see the imperfections then you are in the clear! When you start to see black clusters, or feathers from the naked eye then I would avoid that diamond. No girl wants to see a black dot from her diamond. 

The scale goes  “I3” being the worst – “F” being the best. Now you don’t have to get F in this category, it can get rather expensive depending on the diamond. You can get as low to a “SI” if it looks good to you. If that is a concern for her then go higher so there are less imperfections  shown. Now they are really not imperfections, diamonds are a natural stone from the ground and to geek out for a second it’s the carbon that is sealed inside the stone I actually find that beautiful. To know something real,raw and imperfect can be so valuable.

(Photos come from Blue Nile Website).

Carat Weight: 

There is a lot of misinterpretation of the carat since most people think this means the size of the diamond. When really this means the total weight on the diamond. Here is a fun tip! If you stay just shy of a 2.00 carat and do something a little less like 1.97 carat this could save you a lot of money and It could still appear like a 2 carat size. 

So with all this being said everyone has different opinions of what is most important to them. My personal preference is Cut, Clarity, Color and then Carat Weight. 

I worked at 2 different Jewelry companies and so far my favorite diamond shop is International Diamond Center. I love that they are family owned and have good motives. They also value education, everyone knows their stuff and is willing to teach you more in depth then I could in one blog post. 

Write me down below any questions you have! And send me a photo of her ring you picked for her! I mean diamonds are truly a girl’s best friend and she will be ready to show it off.