This morning, before I sat down to write this post, I came across an advice column letter from a newly engaged woman whose fiancé bought her an enormous diamond that cost him an entire year’s salary. She hated it. It wasn’t her taste, she found it ostentatious, and she hated the idea that he’d spent…
It’s the day you’ve been waiting for, the last day of our four-part discussion about the four Cs so that you can best fit your budget to the best diamond. Next week, we’ll wrap up with how to set that budget, and then we can move on to other things, like hot spring jewelry trends…
No, we’re not talking about colored diamonds, but the third C in our list: color. Even though colored diamonds do exist—in yellow, pink, blue, and even rare red—when it comes to white diamonds, what we really want is absence of color. The Gemological Institute of American (GIA) grades the whitest of diamonds D (A, B,…
In our continuing series on helping you buy the best diamond for your budget, this week we talk about Cut, one of the four Cs, and an important one that will determine the appearance of the stone you purchase when you shop for jewelry in the DC area. In its simplest, non-esoteric terms, cut refers…
The four Cs of diamonds—clarity, color, cut, and carat—were introduced in the mid-1900s and provided a universal tool for evaluating the quality of diamonds, even down to minute variables that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Last week, we talked about how to work toward your budget when selecting a diamond, and said that…
You’ve got your money, you want to buy the diamond gift—a ring, a pendant, earrings—for a special someone, but you want to be sure you’re getting the best you can buy. But how? If you don’t know much about diamonds before you head off to buy jewelry in the DC area, it’s good to bring…
Whether you want to show off, subtly broach the subject of rings, or pepper your proposal with some trivia, here are some things you don’t need to know about engagement rings—at all—but which you nonetheless might not mind knowing. 1) The average cost of an engagement ring in 2017 is $5,500. This could lead to…
When a person opts to “put a ring on it,” the overwhelming popular choice for that ring is still a diamond. The ring custom itself is said to descend from a Roman custom that had wives wearing rings attached to keys, a symbol of their husband’s “ownership.” The diamond idea took off among European upper…
Heart jewelry is trending for 2017, not just for little girls, but for women of all ages, even those who have resisted heart jewelry for years. If your mind is still picturing those cutesy lockets of yesteryear, take another look at the sophisticated heart styles that jewelry designers are rolling out—and have been rolling out—to…
As we’re fond of saying, you can never go wrong with diamond jewelry, and the sheer number of all-diamond pieces we regularly have here at Loudoun Jewelry on Maple Avenue is testament to that. But diamonds also make statements about formality, romance, and more that is replaced by festive sophistication when some of the piece’s…