RingSpotters

RingSpotlight: Yael Designs

Today's RingSpotlight features the award-winning Yael Designs, a fine jewelry house with a well-earned reputation for quality craftsmanship and elegant jewelry. Founded in 2001 as a sustainability-conscious company, Yael uses recycled gold and conflict-free diamonds in all its fine jewelry and supports social and environmental organizations. Yael has created 12 fashion and bridal collections including black/white diamonds, engagement rings, tanzanite, spinning colored stones, fancy yellow diamonds and bridal accessories.

We love their innovative and expressive pieces and their commitment to environmentally conscious jewelry.

RingSpotlight: Seren Diamond

Readers, we are in love with Fancy colored diamonds and are so excited to feature Seren Diamond, a manufacturer of natural fancy colored diamonds with an extensive inventory of exclusive and rare stones. Although they are primarily a source of fancy diamonds, they have started to design and manufacture jewelry. The vivid hues of their stones paired with such intricate and unique settings are simply perfection. Here are some of our faves we pulled from their collection..

About this Jeweler:  Seren Diamond Ltd. is a family business with more than 40 years of experience in manufacturing of Special Fancy Color Diamonds and white diamonds, dealing from rough to polished.  If you are looking for a fancy colored stone, Seren offers an extensive inventory as well as the opportunity to get the diamonds from the source. Over the years Seren has gained the reputation of a supplier of the rarest fancy color diamonds and has manufactured a wide range of diamond shapes both fancy and traditional rounds. And, they will do custom work to help their clients create the perfect colored-stone ring!

4 things you may not know about Fancy Colored Diamonds:

1. Natural Fancy color diamonds are extremely rare and less than 1% of all the diamonds mined for the diamond industry are fancy color.

2. Out of this small quantity less than 1% are red diamonds.

3. Fancy color diamonds are purchased almost exclusively for their color intensity and color distribution which are the main influencing factors in regards to their price.

4. Prices for fancy color diamonds are increasing due to their demand while prices for white diamonds have decreased quite substantially. 

RingSpotlight: Etienne Perret

Ever consider a wedding band of colored diamonds?  This morning, we'd like to showcase colorful and playful wedding bands that are not only unique, but stunning. Made by fine jewelry designer Etienne Perret from Camden, Maine, the bands are set with color enhanced natural diamonds.  Etienne specializes in colored jewelry set in 18 k gold, platinum, and hi-tech Gem Ceramic.  

We love the idea of adding color to the wedding band and think these would pair wonderfully either with a simple single solitaire engagement ring (so as not to add too many dimensions to the set) or stacked on their own in a set of two, three or four! 

Etienne Perret Colored Diamond Channel Bands

About: 18kt yellow, rose & white gold and platinum Channel wedding/commitment bands set with color enhanced natural diamonds in any color of the rainbow.Etienne Perret Rainbow Diamond Channel Bands

About: 18kt rose & yellow gold and platinum Rainbow Channel wedding/commitment bands, set with color enhanced natural diamonds in all colors of the rainbow

RingSpotlight: Brilliant Earth & Ethical Origin Fine Jewelry

Its so easy to get caught up with the beauty and excitement of a ring and forget about where it came from. In the spirit of Earth Day, we'd like to educate our readers about what we can do to be more aware of the issues surrounding conflict diamonds and gems.  

In order to understand what exactly it means to wear eco-friendly jewelry, we contacted Brilliant Earth, San Francisco based jewelers committed to providing ethically and environmentally responsible fine jewelry. We love the story of how this company started - out of a marriage proposal. When the groom could not find a reliable source that could guarantee conflict free diamonds, the couple created Brilliant Earth to provide certified conflict free diamonds as an alternative to current diamond industry practices.  Just fabulous!  

Image Courtesy of:  http://www.brilliantearth.com/loose-diamonds/

Here are some eco-tidbits courtesy of Brilliant Earth that are worth knowing...

 

1. Conflict diamonds have funded devastating civil wars in Africa, ending millions of lives. These "blood diamonds", are associated with human rights abuses, environmental damage, and terrorism.

2.  The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP), was established in 2003 to prevent "blood diamonds" from entering the mainstream rough diamond market. It imposes extensive requirements on its members to enable them to certify shipments of rough diamonds as ‘conflict-free’.

3. Recent events illustrate that the KP is not as reliable as we thought - they continue to certify diamonds from Zimbabwe, even though diamond mining there is causing unspeakable human suffering.

4.  A 2004 Amnesty International survey found that 83% of US jewelers says their customers ‘rarely or never’ inquire about the source of diamonds.

5. A similar study in 2007 found that 56% of jewelers do not even have an auditing procedure in place to prevent the retail of conflict diamonds. Those that do rely on the faulty KP certification.

 

 

We hope to do our part to help create awareness and encourage responsible ring buying. So, in the spirit of Earth Day, all week we'll be featuring posts on what we can do as consumers, as well as photos of eco-friendly rings.