Valentine's Day is coming up, and when's better to pop the question? I mean, you’ve met the one, fallen in love, been through highs and lows, ups and downs and come out knowing you want to be with them forever. There is only one thing left: the ring.
And you are as lost as lost can be.
Welcome to Charles Fish and our Valentine's Day Engagement Ring Breakdown! Let's find you the perfect ring for the perfect girl, and with 20% off all diamonds, there will never be a better time. All of our rings are pre-loved which means you can be assured of two things:
1- You’re doing your part for the environment. Buying pre-loved means your not increasing the demand for new mined diamonds or precious metals. Better for the environment and better for you.
2- Each piece comes with an independent evaluation, meaning you can be sure it is off the highest quality.
Ready?
Quick History
Engagement rings have their roots in Ancient Greece, who were credited with initiating the tradition, using rings made from braided hemp or reeds to symbolize eternal love. This tradition has continued, and with De Beers’ domination of the market in the early 20th century, there is only one choice for an engagement ring. C’mon, we all know that Diamonds Are A Girls best Friend!
Now, diamonds are solidified as the go-to representation of your eternal commitment. They are one of the hardest natural materials, the most enduring and have an innate beauty that no other gem can match up to.
Lets go through some of the most popular cuts and ring types, and see if we can find something for your special someone.
Solitaire Rings
The most popular, and the rings that I think we all imagine when we envision a proposal, a Solitaire Ring simply means ‘one stone’. Usually meaning you’ll have a larger diamond, in a claw setting or a basket mount to let the most light possible into the diamond. The diamonds themselves will vary, those purists will tell you it should be a brilliant round, or a princess cut.
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Cluster Rings
Sometimes called halo solitaires, or flower clusters depending on the shape, these dazzling examples take multiple smaller carat diamonds to surround a larger. This give the illusion that the diamond is bigger, with the natural sparkling of the stones completing the illusion.
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Diamond Shoulders
Often paired with a Marquise cut diamond, these rings, instead of holding singular diamonds or cluster on the setting, pair them with diamond set shoulders. These smaller diamond almost totally remove the bands metal from your vision, making the ring seem to be made of light, or purely composed of diamonds.
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The Four C’s
Now it’s time to get familiar with the 4 C’s: cut, clarity, color, and carat. Each one of these components play an important role in judging a stone’s value.
Cut: The angles, proportions, and symmetry of how the stone is cut and shaped.
What to Look For: High shine and sparkle, well-proportioned shape
Colour: The actual colour of the stone.
What to Look For: Scale of colouring from colourless to light yellow, if shopping for a traditional diamond, look for as colourless as possible, if shopping for a coloured diamond like pink, blue, or yellow, look for intense colouring.
Clarity: The presence of internal and external blemishes (a.k.a. inclusions) on the diamond.
What to Look For: Inclusions act like the stone’s birthmarks; they are formed with the diamond. The amount, size, and location of inclusions can impede the flow of light through the diamond, thus reducing its brightness, the fewer the inclusions, the greater the clarity.
Carat: The weight of the stone. One carat = 200 milligrams
What to Look For: While size is the most common factor in determining the value of a diamond, bigger is not always better. A smaller diamond with better clarity, cut, and colour quality may be valued higher than a low-quality larger diamond.
At the end of the day, you know your love better than we do, you’ll have to figure out which ‘C’ is most important to you.
Diamond Shapes
- Baguette: Slender rectangular shape accentuates whiteness, lustre, and clarity
- Oval: An elongated oval shape to create an illusion of greater size
- Heart: Heart shaped cut to symbolize love
- Radiant: High brilliance rectangular shape. Matches well with rounded and square cornered diamonds
- Cushion: Square cut with rounded corners. Was the most popular shape for the first century of its existence 200 years ago
- Emerald: Square shape with step cuts and a large table. Produces a hall-of-mirrors effect.
- Pear: Combination of a round and marquise shape. This is a very uniform and symmetrical cut
- Princess: Square or rectangular shaped with the profile similar to that of an inverted pyramid. This is currently the second most popular cut
- Round: This circular shape is the most popular cut today as it produces maximum brightness
- Marquise: Long and narrow football-shaped cut. Creates an illusion of greater size with its large surface area
Well, there you go, about as much information as we can give you about buying a ring. Just remember if you have any questions at all just give us a call or a message! We're here to help.
