Diamond Quality for Earrings

[getting excited]

THis site was very helpful when I was looking for my engagement ring. I felt like I had a good idea of what a "good" diamond was and what I would look for when we went shopping. Now I am looking into getting some small, diamond stud earrings, but have no clue where to start in terms of quality and pricing. Should the diamonds I look for be the same quality as what I was looking for when we looked at engagement rings? Or is quality in the earrings less important? THat may be a stupid question, but I just have no idea

 

[marcy]

I am personally not as picky for earrings as I would be for a ring but you can never see them on me under my hair. I bought some ready set to go studs from Whiteflash and love them. They are not upgradeable but are wonderful diamonds and are reasonably priced. They don't come with certificates but for earrings that didn't matter to me. You can search through earrings at the mall and maybe find a nice pair but many of them are poor cuts and low clarity.

 

[CedarRapids]

Never sacrifice on cut on a diamond. Studs included. Cut=sparkle.

The conventional thinking is that you can sacrifice on clarity because people don't 'examine' studs as they do e-rings. So, if you're talking 0.5 or less, and if you are need of bifocals like me, you won't even see that feather! S11, S12 should be OK.

Color is a personal preference, but some will say that that can be sacrificed too in studs. White gold setting? You can probably go to an H, I, maybe J setting.

 

[Gypsy]

I would be perfectly happy with a non-hearts and arrows cut with near ideal light return at J or K color and eyeclean from the top clarity-- fluorescence a plus. A GIA Ex/Ex with near ideal light return would be great as well. I don't need perfect precision cut symmetry in earrings. I don't need high color. I don't need eyeclean from all angles (I like bezels).

I also don't need certificates. If they are uncertified from someplace like BGD whom I trust... no problem. That's just savings in the bank. But since I would need to upgrade to the size I want eventually... then I would go for certed stones.

 

[centralsquare]

Never sacrifice on cut on a diamond. Studs included. Cut=sparkle.

The conventional thinking is that you can sacrifice on clarity because people don't 'examine' studs as they do e-rings. So, if you're talking 0.5 or less, and if you are need of bifocals like me, you won't even see that feather! S11, S12 should be OK.

Color is a personal preference, but some will say that that can be sacrificed too in studs. White gold setting? You can probably go to an H, I, maybe J setting.

+1 My earrings are J SI1

 

[CedarRapids]

Never sacrifice on cut on a diamond. Studs included. Cut=sparkle.

The conventional thinking is that you can sacrifice on clarity because people don't 'examine' studs as they do e-rings. So, if you're talking 0.5 or less, and if you are need of bifocals like me, you won't even see that feather! S11, S12 should be OK.

Color is a personal preference, but some will say that that can be sacrificed too in studs. White gold setting? You can probably go to an H, I, maybe J setting.

I should clarify that I meant 0.5 or less per stud or 1.0 tcw or less for the pair.