What is the most popular engagement ring right now?
Want to know what’s hot, what’s trendy, what people are buying?
Well, it’s a combination of things; diamond, shape, quality, mounting, style…
So let’s dig in…
1) The Metal:
The metal is 14k white gold. Hands down. It’s the most brilliant white metal there is. It makes all the diamonds pop and sparkle. It’s easy to polish, clean, and repair (Platinum, Tungsten, and Titanium are not easy to work with).
2) The Mounting:
Halo mountings (a circle of diamonds around the center stone). So so popular. Just like these examples shown below:
Classic, elegant, timeless, and a lot of pizzazz and bling.
Check out these halo mountings here at James Allen.
3) Diamond Shape:
Oval. Oval diamonds are HOT and in-demand. Of course, rounds are always the best seller, but ovals are what people are asking for. Ovals look bigger than a round diamond, they have the same brilliant cutting style, and are about 20% cheaper.
4) Diamond Quality:
Diamond quality is subjective (meaning clarity and color). But the most popular clarity is SI1 (or higher). SI1 is eye-clean, with small imperfections that are microscopic only (you’ll need a microscope or a 10x jeweler’s loupe to see them).
The best diamond colors are G-H or higher (D-E-F). These are considered ‘white‘ diamonds and won’t look aged or yellow in hue.
See some SI1, D-H, oval diamonds here.
5) Diamond Cut:
The cut grade…
Well, here’s where it gets a little tricky. Ovals are not graded with a cut grade like rounds (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor)…
This lack of grade is because all the other shapes (other then the round) are called fancy diamonds. And fancy diamonds come in all different thicknesses, widths, short, fat, tall, skinny, lumpy, spread… (unlike round diamonds which are perfectly symmetrical and easier to proportion and analyze).
When it comes to the oval cut, there are very few factors to go by. You can look at the symmetry and polish grades. Those help (go for excellent if you can). But actually, how is appears is the best advise. The best shape for an oval is twice as long as it is wide (2×1). That’s balanced and pleasing to the eye. Compare different oval cut diamonds below to see what I mean…
You will also notice that a lot of oval cut diamonds tend to have tons of dark shadows in them. And while a nice contrast of some dark and white are appropriate, you don’t want to darken the stone (see some examples below)…
So keep an eye on brilliance. It should sparkle, and it should look bright and white.
6) Carat Weight:
Get whatever carat weight you can afford (although 1.00 carats are the ‘dream’ carat weight).
But actually, get whatever carat weight fits into the mounting you desire. They all hold different sizes and the halo will dictate what carat weight you can choose.
So find a mounting that you love, and then find the perfect stone to fit it.
And there you have it.
The most popular engagement ring in the world (right now).
See halo mountings like these at James Allen here.
Cheers! :)