How to find a great diamond ring

A diamond ring is an investment in the future: whenever you do something really boneheaded, its sparkle should remind her that you are in fact a great guy. So you have to find a stone with flare. You probably know the 4Cs of diamond grading: color, cut, clarity, and carat — but there’s a more important question: does it simply look awesome? Randall Wagner, a cofounder with Kurt Shoeckert of the diamond grading company GemEx, calls this quality a stone’s “gaga factor” and he’s found a way to measure it.

According to Randall, what makes a ring beautiful has a lot to do with how well it’s cut — and gem cutters are more likely to grind away at a less expensive stone than risk dinging a pricey one. “So the $4,000 diamond can look better than the $11,000 diamond, because they spent more time on it,” Randall told us.

To determine the gaga factor of a diamond, GemEx measures what percent of bright white light the diamond returns, what percentage of colored light, and the light’s scintillation, its play on the stone’s surface. They sum up the resulting figures in their GemEx report, which provides an easy-to-understand valuation of a stone’s flare.

The GemEx website has a list of stores across the country that carry GemEx certified diamonds. Next time you go ring shopping, check out their recommendations — they might help you find a diamond that will just look as if it cost you an arm and a leg.

VIST: GemEx