Some things never seem to go out of fashion like Tom Cruise being Maverick or Patrick Stewart being Picard in Star Trek. Diamond engagement rings have also been fashionable since many decades now. This creates a minor challenge for the man right when he is at a ‘crossroads’ (h/t Al Pacino monologue in Scent of A Woman) in his life.

The man must get this right – he must choose a diamond engagement ring that will ‘seal the deal’ as it were. We are here to help.

How Tough Is It to Find A Diamond Engagement Ring?

Luckily, the answer is not ‘you cannot handle the truth’ unlike what Jack Nicholson said to Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men. Choosing the right diamond engagement ring is not an impossibly difficult task – it is just that since this is going to be a relatively expensive purchase for a young man (most likely) and since there is always the unknown factor of whether the girlfriend is going to be pleased or not by the choice made by the young man, the buying of a diamond engagement ring can be a tricky affair.

You don’t want to get taken for a ride – you want to buy an engagement ring that is the correct size, has the correct clarity value, looks reasonably color-less, lacks visible blemishes, sparkles reasonably brilliantly and is not exorbitantly expensive. Nor should you be buying a conflict diamond.

This requires that you do some due diligence before making your purchase.

The 4C’s of Diamonds

While a diamond is just an allotropic form of one of the most common elements on Earth – carbon – the molecular arrangement inside a diamond makes it one of the hardest substances on Earth. But that’s not all.

A diamond has other qualities too: cut, color, clarity, and carat.

A diamond sparkles with brilliance and this is a result of the way a diamond is cut and polished. Before you purchase an engagement ring in Singapore, make sure it has the right type of cut that reflects the light in the correct way. You should narrow your search to either Excellent or Ideal Cut diamonds.

The less color the better when it comes to diamonds. Completely colorless diamonds are the rarest and most expensive. So, you could consider a diamond that has as little color and also as little fluorescence as possible.

In terms of clarity, you should opt for an eye clean diamond that is in the VS1 to VS2 range. These diamonds won’t have any blemishes or other imperfections that are visible to the lay observer when looked at using normal light rather than a store’s bright lights.

Carat number gives the size of the diamond. You could aim for a diamond in the 0.3 to 0.6 carat range. It is even better to go for a diamond having an imperfect carat number such as 0.28 or 0.38.

These are way cheaper.

Above all, make sure your diamond store sells diamonds with a GIA or AGS certificate. These certificates will tell you about the diamond’s clarity grade, color and fluorescence.

Diamond Shapes and Settings

It takes workmanship to bring out the beauty in a diamond. The workmanship shows in the shapes of diamonds such as round, emerald, heart, oval, and others.

Similarly, the stones that go along with the diamond can be set inside the ring in various ways such as solitaire, tiffany, twist, trellis, antique, bezel, cathedral and cluster.

These are individual choices and you should try to glean some knowledge as to your girlfriend’s aesthetic preferences before making these choices as also choosing one out of the many ring metal options – platinum, or white, yellow, or rose gold.

Hopefully, you will make a diamond engagement ring choice that will take her breath away, figuratively speaking. Then you can begin to worry about navigating other hurdles that require making choices – what Netflix shows to watch jointly, what movies and so forth. Tell us what movies both of you can watch a nearly infinite number of times – is it Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, is it Top Gun, is it Rain Man or something else.