Quick and Easy Buying Guide
Carat weight: 1 carat = 200 milligrams = 6.5 mm diameter. Doubling weight doesn't double diameter.
Diamond clarity: FL/IF/VVS/VS = super expensive, near perfect. SI = best value if you can check a photo for obvious inclusions (defects).
Color: D-G = colorless, expensive, only if you have money to burn. H-J = best value. Can go lower in gold metal settings than white metal.
Cut: Better cut ratings let more light into a diamond, making it sparkle more. Very important property, don't skimp here.
Set a budget and minimum cut (Premium). Go J color for gold and I/H for white metals. Go searching for SI1/SI2 clarity diamonds at James Allen. Pick a diamond with small/no inclusions. Choose a ring setting and buy it risk-free (60-day returns).
Diamond Studs For Women
Diamond studs are a classical piece of jewellery that are guaranteed to never go out of fashion. Having just bought a pair I can tell you that they are a beautiful piece of jewellery to be worn out in public.
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I'm going to briefly talk about buying diamond studs online in this article. I'm going to use two of the major online diamond companies, James Allen and Blue Nile, to illustrate the examples.
You have two major options when you go to buy diamond studs online. You can buy preset studs or you can find your own diamond pair to make your own custom set of diamond studs.
Preset diamond studs are offered by major companies as a way of quickly buying cheaper diamond stud sets. The diamonds in these cases are guaranteed to have a certain total diamond weight and are also of a certain colour and clarity rating such as H colour and SI1 clarity. You can also choose preset studs with a higher clarity rating and colour rating but the price obviously goes up.
To give you an idea of a typical price for the studs, here are the prices for four different sizes of plain diamond stud earrings for James Allen at the time of writing this article.
A pair of diamond studs set in 18 carat white gold with a total diamond weight of 0.25 carats will set you back $300 US.
To get half carat in total diamond weight you're looking at $650. The diamonds in this case are a little over 3 mm in diameter.
Moving up to 0.75 carats, the price jumps to $1025.
The biggest price jump however is when you move from .75 carats to one carat total diamond weight, where the price jumps up to $1850. These prices stay the same if you switch to yellow gold but become more expensive as you go to fancier stud settings.
At this stage, you're probably better off using the online diamond finder tool to make your own set of custom earings. The tool will automatically find paired diamonds that would be a good match for a pair of earrings. What you can do is use the online photos to pick a pair which are eye clean and hence get a good bargain by avoiding having to go up in clarity rating.
In searching for diamonds for earings, remember typically you can relax the requirements on clarity, as these diamonds will not be seen as close-up as an engagement ring diamond.