Lab Grown Diamond Buying Guide
The new diamond age has begun. After decades of research,
scientists have finally developed the technology to make fine quality diamonds in a laboratory.
That means these beautiful gems are now more accessible for a wider audience.
Buyer’s Guide to Round Cut Diamonds
The round brilliant diamond cut, with its 58 facets, pointed culet,
and optimized proportions is the culmination of hundreds of years of perfecting the art of
diamond cutting. Yes, the round brilliant is that good.
Buyer’s Guide to Cushion Cut Diamonds
There is more variety in cushion cut diamonds than in any other
diamond shape. Each cushion cut diamond has its own individual personality.
Buyer’s Guide to Princess Cut Diamonds
There’s something so crisp and modern about the straight edges of a
princess cut. It has excellent fire and brilliance and the facet pattern is forms beautiful
lines that emphasize the square shape.
Buyer’s Guide to Emerald Cut Diamonds
Although the quality factors used to evaluate emerald cut diamonds
are the same as the 4Cs of round brilliant diamonds, you will probably want to make different
choices when you are shopping for emerald cuts.
Buyer’s Guide to Oval Shaped Diamonds
Besides their magical finger-lengthening silhouette, there is a lot
to love about oval-shaped diamonds. They have a lot of brilliance and their curved shape means
they are very durable, with no points to chip.
Buyer’s Guide to Pear Shaped Diamonds
Half round brilliant, half marquise shape, all drama: pear shaped
diamonds are the perfect choice for lively and adventurous women who don’t mind being the center
of attention.
Buyer’s Guide to Marquise Cut Diamonds
The marquise appeals to women looking for something different. This
elegantly elongated diamond shape is an enticing combination of soft and sharp, with its
graceful curves and narrow pointed tips.
Buyer’s Guide to Asscher Cut Diamonds
Although most people think of the Asscher as a variation of the
emerald cut, you could argue that the Asscher came first. The earliest faceted diamond shapes,
the table cut, was square, not rectangular.
Buyer’s Guide to Radiant Cut Diamonds
Love the octagonal shape of an emerald cut but also the sparkle of
a round brilliant? Your diamond shape is the radiant cut! This innovative cross between those
two more well-known diamond cuts lets you have your cake and eat it too.
Buyer’s Guide to Heart Shaped Diamonds
Like a brilliant valentine that lasts forever, heart shaped
diamonds are a grand gesture of romance. But true love isn’t easy. The heart shape is the most
difficult of all diamond shapes to cut.
Buyer’s Guide to Fancy Yellow Diamonds
Like sunshine on a summer day, fancy yellow diamonds have all the
brilliance and fire of white diamonds with a fresh squeeze of juicy lemon color. Fancy colored
diamonds are rare and luxurious as well as beautiful: only one in 10,000 diamonds qualifies as
fancy color.
Buyer’s Guide to Pink Diamonds
Pink diamonds are in the news: breaking records at auctions,
turning heads in million-dollar celebrity engagement rings, and being named “the world’s hottest
gemstone” by The New York Post.
Buyer’s Guide to Green Diamonds
For diamonds, it’s not easy being green. Diamonds with a vivid
green color, like the one shown here, are very rare. There are only about 300 examples in the
world above one carat in size.
Buyer’s Guide to Gray Diamonds
There are many more than 50 shades of gray diamonds, from the
palest platinum gray to dark charcoal and every shade in between.
Buyer’s Guide to Purple Diamonds
Purple and violet diamonds are exceedingly rare. In fact they are
so rare that a pure purple diamond of only 1.99 carats recently sold at auction for $673,000.
Buyer’s Guide to Women's Wedding Bands
Should you choose an eternity ring? Or a shadow band? Or a
traditional wedding band? We are here to walk you through the options so you can shoose the ring
that suits you and your engagement ring best.
Buyer’s Guide to Men's Wedding Bands
There are now many more men’s wedding band options to choose from,
from classic to traditional with a twist to completely contemporary. At RockHer we have 592
different styles and we also can custom create any design you like.
Buyer’s Guide to Rose Gold
Today rose gold is popular in diamond engagement rings, wedding
bands, and a wide range of fashionable fine jewelry.
How Diamonds are Mined
The journey of your diamond begins a billion years ago a hundred
miles deep in the earth’s crust. The pressure is so intense, 45,000 times the pressure at sea
level, that atoms of carbon crystallize into diamond, the hardest material on earth.
Ice to Fire: How Diamonds Are Cut & Polished
The journey of a diamond from rough to the sparkling gem on your
finger is surprisingly complex, using technologies developed over centuries.
Selecting the Perfect Engagement Ring
Find out more about the different styles of engagement rings in
order to pick the perfect one. From vintage to modern and halo to solitaire, this guide will
help you find the style and shape best suited for your love.
Diamond Essentials - The 4C's
Learn all about the 4C's and how they can help you select the
perfect diamond. Cut, color, carat and clarity will explain the process of how a diamond is
graded from start to finish.
Diamonds in Depth
This advanced education page will go further into detail about the
history of diamonds and the science behind the industry's past, present, and future.
How a Diamond Finds It's Brilliance
Diamonds are meant to sparkle and shine. From cut to mounting, we
will explain the processes a diamond has to go through in order to shine at its maximum
capacity.
Select the Perfect Wedding Band
Whether you want to match your band to your engagement ring or
choose to buy something more ornate, we will help you find the right match for both you and your
partner.
Judging Jewelry Craftsmanship
The quality of jewelry craftsmanship is in the details. We take a
closer look at the small differences that add up to true heirloom quality jewelry that will be
enjoyed for generations.
Precious Metals Education
Read more about the differences between white gold, gold, platinum,
and palladium to make an informed decision about which metal is right for you.
Gemstones Education
Here you will learn everything you need to know about gemstone
jewelry. From Ruby to Sapphire, this section will help you find the ideal stone for your taste
and budget.
Find A Ring That Suits Her Style
From solitaire to halo to three-stone, this guide to the most
popular ring styles and the women who love them will help you make the right choice of
engagement ring setting for a ring she’ll love forever.
Hearts & Arrows Diamonds
If you want the highest possible level of diamond craftsmanship,
you want a Hearts & Arrows Diamond: a diamond cut with such precise symmetry that it displays a
distinct pattern under a special viewer, demonstrating its superior light performance.
RockHer Brilliant Cushion Diamond
The RockHer Brilliant Cushion is a square cushion that’s brilliant
cut to ideal proportions with so much precision it is noticeably whiter and brighter than both
the standard cushion brilliant and the standard modified cushion brilliant.
Take the Diamond AI Challenge
Match with ROSI, our diamond-picking algorithm based on IBM's
Watson.Find the best diamond you can from any site or store and then take our challenge. Then
challenge ROSI to run the numbers and find you a more beautiful diamond that's a better value
too.
Learn How We Make Your Ring From Scratch
At RockHer, we make each ring we sell from scratch to fit both your
diamond and your finger. Making your ring to order in our Los Angeles workshop means we can
tailor every detail to fit you and your diamond perfectly.
Understanding Diamond Clarity
To evaluate diamond clarity, graders examine diamonds under 10x
magnification and determine the number, size, relief, nature, and position of inclusions and
whether they affect the overall appearance and durability of the diamond.
Understanding the Diamond Color Scale
Today it’s hard to imagine buying diamonds without the 4Cs, the
handy mnemonic device GIA created to describe diamond quality, and the familiar diamond color
grades.
But the diamond color scale is a relatively recent invention created in the 1950s by the
Gemological Institute of America.
Understanding Diamond Carats and Diamond Size
The first thing we notice about a diamond engagement ring is its
size. But diamonds are sold by weight, not size. Diamond carats are a unit of gem weight that’s
equivalent to one-fifth of a gram. In other words, a five-carat diamond weighs one gram.
Diamond Fluorescence and Value
Diamond fluorescence is one of the most controversial aspects of
diamond quality and value. It’s bad for diamonds. Except for when it’s good. It makes a diamond
worth less. Except for when it makes it worth more.
What is the Difference between Diamonds and Diamond Simulants
When is a diamond not a real diamond? When it’s a diamond simulant!
These pretenders do their best to imitate the look of a diamond but are much less valuable. Some
do a much better job of simulating a diamond. Here’s what you need to know about the most common
diamond imitations.
What Makes a Diamond Sparkle?
Icy white. Transparent as water. Harder than nails. Billions of
years old. Diamonds are the most sought after gems on earth. But what really makes a diamond
special is the way it handles light. That’s what makes diamond the king of bling. Nothing is as
brilliant as a diamond. So what makes a diamond sparkle?
What You Need to Know About Buying Black Diamonds
Even if you know a lot about diamond quality, buying a black
diamond is almost as opaque and mysterious as the inky gems themselves.In almost every way,
black diamonds are the opposite of traditional colorless diamonds. They are colorless diamond’s
goth cousin: dark instead of bright. Colorless diamonds are for everyone. Black diamond
engagement rings are for women who aren't like anyone else: rebels, iconoclasts, and
trendsetters.
Why Are Diamonds Expensive?
There’s no doubt about it. Diamonds are expensive. Diamonds cost
more than gold or platinum. A lot more. So why are diamonds so expensive? I know there are a lot
of blog posts out there saying that it’s all a conspiracy by big bad De Beers and jewelers who
mark up diamonds 200%. I hate to break it to you but neither one of those things are true.
Why Diamond Certification Doesn’t Exist And Why That Matters
Everyone tells you the same thing. Don’t buy a diamond without a
certificate. You definitely need a certified diamond. What does it say on the diamond cert? Does
your diamond have GIA certification? What’s on the GIA cert? There’s just one problem with all
that good advice. There is no such thing as diamond certification.
Why You Need a GIA Grading Report for Your Diamond
When you buy a house, it comes with a deed that details the
measurements of your property. Your car has a title and registration. You also need
documentation for your diamond engagement ring.
What are the Ideal Diamond Proportions?
Cut is the most important of the 4C's. The quality of a diamond’s
cut is what makes it flash with brilliance, fire and scintillation and dance with light. Judging
the quality of a diamond’s cut is the most complicated of the 4Cs too. It requires evaluating
the way a diamond’s proportions, symmetry, and craftsmanship affect the way it sparkles.
Laser Drilled Diamonds (and Why You Should Avoid Them)
Diamonds without eye-visible inclusions are rare. So it’s not
surprising that people have worked on ways to make diamonds with ugly inclusions look a little
better. The most common way to treat diamonds to improve their clarity is by using lasers.
What Are D Color Diamonds?
When would you be happy to receive a D grade? When you’re grading
the color of your diamond, of course! D is the highest colorless diamond grade and the ultimate
colorless gem. D color diamonds are the pinnacles of icy colorless perfection. Why do we say
colorless diamonds and not white diamonds? Colorless diamonds are transparent like water, not
reflective like a white paint chip.
What Are E Color Diamonds?
Colorless, icy, and bright, E color diamonds are almost at the top
of the standard diamond color scale. If you think of diamond color grades as a mountain, the
pinnacle belongs to D-color diamonds, the rarest of the rare. E-color diamonds are also rare,
also colorless, just, you know, not quite as much. You might think that means they are often
overlooked. You would be wrong.
What Are F Color Diamonds?
F-color diamonds are in demand because they are colorless: the most
common (and most affordable) of the truly colorless diamond grades.
What Are G Color Diamonds?
G-color diamonds are in demand because they are colorless: the most
common (and most affordable) of the truly colorless diamond grades.
What Are H Color Diamonds?
If you have an unlimited budget, buying a diamond is easy: just get
a 15-carat D Flawless in your favorite shape. Done. For the rest of us, it’s a balancing act:
where do you compromise to get the best possible diamond for your budget?
What Are I Color Diamonds?
Diamonds in the near-colorless part of the D-to-Z diamond color
scale, are in the Goldilocks zone of diamond color: not too expensive like D, E & F colorless
diamonds, but not noticeably off-white like K,L & M faint color diamonds. The value that
near-colorless diamonds represent is just right.
What Are J Color Diamonds?
If you want a classic colorless white diamond, you probably are
shopping in the near-colorless section of the standard D-to-Z diamond color grading scale. Near
colorless diamonds have color grades of G, H, I and J.
What Are K Color Diamonds?
If you’ve been researching diamond quality online, you probably
haven’t read many experts recommending K color diamonds. There’s a good reason for that. Because
K-color is categorized as a diamond with faint color, it won’t be mistaken for a colorless
diamond like a G or H color grade might.
What is a SI1 Diamond Clarity Grade?
We’ve certainly seen SI1 clarity diamonds that are beautifully eye
clean. But we’ve also seen many that have inclusions you can see with your naked eye. And that’s
the dilemma of SI1 diamonds in a nutshell: sometimes they are a great value and sometimes they
are disappointing. That’s why we hesitate to recommend that you buy one.
What is a SI2 Diamond Clarity Grade?
Here’s where it can start to get ugly. In general we don't believe
that paying a premium for high diamond clarity grades is worth the trade-off. But we have to
draw the line somewhere. And that line is generally in the middle of SI2 clarity.
What is a VS1 Diamond Clarity Grade?
The best Very Slightly Included diamonds, that is diamonds with a
VS1 clarity grade, have a lot of fans. Why? They don't have any inclusions that you can see with
the naked eye. And yet they are much more affordable than diamonds with an IF or VVS clarity
grade.
What is a VS2 Diamond Clarity Grade?
When you are buying a diamond, how much do inclusions matter? They
matter a lot if you can see them. But a lot of diamond clarity distinctions are completely
invisible to the naked eye.
What is a VVS1 Diamond Clarity Grade?
Diamonds are earth’s hardest substance: brilliant transparent
crystals that are close to perfect. So close to perfect, in fact, that the tiny imperfections
that distinguish them from one another are often so small that they can only be seen under
magnification.
What is a VVS2 Diamond Clarity Grade?
Inside every diamond are microscopic time capsules: crystals from
the deep earth, tiny cleavages from the pressure, and atoms trapped with the diamond when it
formed billions of years ago.
