Buzzfeed's Engagement Ring Diagrams That Will Make Your Life Easier
This listicle is a fun piece that rounds up some helpful inforgraphics and diagrams for engagement ring shopping. However, they aren’t without flaws. A few of the diagrams gave us pause – they need clarification to truly make your life easier. That’s why we’re here!
Ring Sizing
The biggest issue here lies with the string trick. It’s not always reliable. It’s not the worst, and you’ll end up within a size either way. However that makes a huge difference to a newly engaged lady who would like nothing more than to wear the stunning engagement ring you spent weeks/months working on. The bar of soap trick is genius, though. We’re not sure how our sales team would react to that but we’d sure like to watch that interaction go down. And yes we could definitely size it based off that! You just have to make sure it’s a ring she wears on her left ring finger (right and left hand ring sizes can and most often do differ slightly.) Overall, it’s a helpful chart, but it left out one of our favorite tricks. If your beloved has close girlfriends who are married, she’s likely tried on their ring for fun. If it fits, voila, that’s her ring size! If not, you still don’t need to go ring shopping together (unless that’s what you want.) In the vast majority of cases you can guesstimate and order a stock size, then as soon as she says “Yes!” you can take it to your jeweler to have it fitted, free of charge. If they try to charge you (ask before you purchase) think twice about purchasing your ring from them.
Why Diamonds are so Expensive
Well, this is no surprise, though it acts like it’s sharing Illuminati level secrets. Diamond prices are artificially controlled. That doesn’t mean they aren’t rare, or valuable, or extremely difficult to dig up out of the earth. They take a couple million years to develop too, so there’s that. That being said, the two month’s salary rule was a marketing ploy cooked up by big, bad DeBeer’s. The three month salary rule is something we’ve never heard of prior to viewing this graphic. It is also utter nonsense. Anyone who tells you how much of your hard earned money you should spend as a rule is someone who doesn’t deserve your business. You can’t control diamond prices, but you can control how much of your salary you spend on one. Spend what you’re comfortable. That’s the only “rule.”
Diamond Size Guide
This graphic is very popular. However we do have an issue with the clearly photoshopped carat infographic. These “diamonds” are photoshopped, with the bare bones requirements and average of their mm size and corresponding carat weight. This doesn’t allow for our favorite diamond trick, SPREAD! Moreover, that “10 carat” looks a lot like our 5 carats. See? The better visual shows actual diamonds, and we’ve done the same.
Gemstone Guide
We have nothing against gemstone engagement rings. That being said, do your research on the hardness of various gemstones. Some are more durable and more suited to the everyday wear of an engagement ring than others are. Like Sapphires vs. Pearls – there’s a big difference in their hardness and durability.
Diamond Alternatives
We don’t recommend diamond alternatives. If you don’t want a diamond, don’t buy a diamond. A knockoff is just that, and presents uncomfortable situations from time to time. If neither of you care that you’ll likely need to replace the stone every few years, admit to others that it’s not a diamond (none of their beeswax anyway) or give it special treatment, then have at it. However, a better option might be a gemstone that has special meaning to you two, or a gemstone that you find beautiful, like morganite.
