I too bought a ring from D.NEA

In homage to a previous post: http://www.pricescope.com/forum/laboratory-grown-diamonds-man-made-diamonds-mmd/bought-a-ring-from-d-nea-t166436.html, I too bought a ring from D.NEA for my girlfriend/fiancee. I proposed to her a couple of weeks ago and she is quite happy with it. She said "yes" by the way.

The diamond is a 0.63 ct Fancy Intense Blue (FIB), SI2, radiant cut. The ring I decided on is 18K unplated Pd white gold with 18 small colorless diamonds along the band. I will attach an image as soon as I can figure out how.

Some thoughts on my purchasing experience:

1) First why did I buy a man made diamond (MMD) over a mined diamond? A couple of reasons: A MMD has a much smaller carbon footprint than a mined diamond as well as a smaller environmental impact. The origin of the diamond is known so need to worry about "blood diamonds." Even Canadian diamonds come from strip mines that have a great affect on the Earth. Those who would argue that a MMD is man made and not natural, the mined diamond is also highly processed material. So I feel that they are equivalent in this manner. As an environmental scientist, I appreciate these facts as well as the technology behind creating a diamond. Finally, there are the same as a mined diamond except for trace metal fluxes found within the MMD which are not normally found in a mined one. But can only be identified by using advanced techniques infrared spectroscopy and/or Raman spectroscopy (feel free to ask me if you want to know more about how these techniques work) and laboratory equipment not commonly found except in large research universities or research companies.

2) Why blue? This was the hardest choice for me as I went back and forth between blue and yellow for weeks. Finally, it came down to what my fiancee liked better. Even though blue diamonds tend to cost similar to man mined colorless diamonds the the cost of a synthetic fancy blue diamond is orders of magnitude less than a mined one. Finally, blue diamonds look stunning! And the amount of blue changes with the light source. (See pictures below)

3) Why a Radiant cut? My fiancee did not want a standard round brilliant so I looked into both princess and radiant cuts. What I found was that in my opinion that well cut radiant cut diamonds sparkled more than princess cut diamonds. I would highly recommend anyone looking into square or rectangular diamonds to look into radiant diamonds.

4) Finally the customer service provided by D.NEA is great, and I would recommend them to anyone looking for a man made diamond without hesitation. In fact, I am getting our wedding bands from D.NEA as well. Their website is http://d.neadiamonds.com

Thanks for reading.

Attachments

Blue Engagment Ring PS.jpg (139.1 KiB) Viewed 1762 times

Blue Outside.jpg (194.48 KiB) Viewed 1762 times