A diamond is a product of nature. When a diamond forms deep underground, it never forms perfectly; there are always flaws because it is a natural product of the earth. The industry term for these flaws is inclusions (probably because our customers don’t like hearing the word “flaws!”).

For us, clarity is a high jump bar – our philosophy is that as long as the diamond has no inclusions that bother your naked eye, you are over the bar, and it’s a waste of money to buy a stone with gemologically perfect clarity.

This is why it’s so hard to buy diamonds online - you can’t see what you’re evaluating.

Online stores will try to get around this by presenting a certificate on the diamond, but grading the diamond is subjective as well, and the certificate really doesn’t provide you all the information you need.

We can’t even tell you how many times I’ve sent two virtually identical stones to the gem lab and gotten two different grades. For that matter, on several occasions we’ve sent the same stone to the lab twice and gotten different grades from different gemologists!

The problem with relying on a certificate is that it’s subjective.

At the end of the day, it’s just the opinion of the guy at the lab. You can get different grading on the same stone from a different lab, or send the stone back to the same lab and get a different grade from a different grader in the lab on another day.

A lot of people ask us what’s the difference between GIA and EGL USA.

Here are two links to videos we made explaining the difference between EGL and GIA diamonds for you -- please have a look below. It is our philosophy to not buy the certificate for the diamond but the diamond itself and a diamond that has been assessed by a professional.

Since it’s a subjective system, there’s no way you can trust a certificate accompanying an online diamond 100%, which is why it’s so important to know your jeweler – there’s nothing better than a pair of human eyes that you trust looking at your diamond for you.