Member- september201601
- 3 years ago
- Wedding: September 2016
Hello! I relied on the boards here a lot to get some opinions on moissanite before my Darling Husband and I picked out my engagement ring. Now I’ve been wearing the ring for 10 months (short engagement), and I thought I would pay it forward and put my 2 cents out there for someone else who might be looking for advice/opinions about moissanite. So below are my answers to the questions I had when I was picking out my E ring.
Basic stats: 6.5mm (1ct equivalent) OEC (old European cut, now discontinued) Forever Brilliant moissanite set in a platinum bezel with a palladium shank. Ring size 5.5, with large half moon beads to get it to fit on a size 4.75 / 5 finger. Very short fingers. Pictures in a variety of lights and a variety of states of clean / polish. http://imgur.com/a/7pzWN
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Is a moissanite just like a diamond? No.
The difference is noticeable if you put the moissanite directly next to a diamond and really look at them. Moissanite on its own however, without a direct comparison and some time to really look, does not stand out as being obviously different from a diamond.
What is the difference? Moissanite is like fire. Diamonds are like ice.
My moissanite is similar to the diamonds I have compared it to in that it is a white, sparkly stone. But it differs significantly in the character of the stone. Neither is more beautiful than the other, they are just different. Moissanite shines noticeably more brightly, but seemingly at the cost of the depth of the stone (although perhaps the issue is also the OECut). I’d very roughly compare moissanite sparkle to sunshine reflecting off of crystal windows, and diamond sparkle to sunshine reflecting off of water. Moissanite has more of a powerful, glowing radiance and a warmer off-white color. It can look like it is actually glowing and it is amazing. The diamonds I’ve seen, on the other hand, have a vibrant depth to them and more of a cooler blue-greyish tone. Looking closely at diamonds draws you further and further in; a moissanite in passing or in a photo is more likely to catch your eye.
What about the color?
Held casually side by side with a diamond, the moissanite looks warm and radiant, the diamond looks cool and deep. Upon extremely, extremely close side by side inspection, my moissanite is an ever-so-slightly-green-ish yellow/cream, and the diamonds I compared to looked an ever-so-slightly-blue-ish grey/white. If i needed to pick colors to draw the stones in, I would choose for diamonds: ghost white, white smoke, baby powder, and for moissanite baby powder, ivory, floral white. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_white
The color difference between diamonds and moissanites hardly shows up at all in pictures or videos. Moreover my moissanite can be pretty moody and look wildly different on different days. You really need to have two stones next to each other and about four inches from your face to get a good grasp of what color moissanite actually is.
How do ‘people’ react to moissanite?
When my Dad saw my moissanite he suggested that perhaps it was time to upgrade my mother’s diamond. My sister in-law called out from across the living room when I started wearing the ring: ‘WOW that ring is sparkly’. My mother refuses to call the stone anything but ‘a diamond’ and got 100% behind the choice when her most trusted jeweler, where she had as a favor taken the stone on my DH’s behalf to be set, told her that had they sourced a diamond of similar clarity, cut, etc it would have cost around 6k – 10k. A secretary interrupted me to say the ring is ‘breath taking’ and get a closer look at it. A dear friend who is very into jewelry said she noticed the stone is extra sparkly and warm. If anyone doesn’t like it they have very politely not said anything. I get compliments from lots of professionals at jewelry stores too — the sales clerk at TIffany’s complimented my Darling Husband on a ‘great job’ picking out my ring — but who knows how sincere those are.
Why did we pick moissanite?
At the end of the day, moissanite is a better reflection of our values as a couple. It is beautiful, a joy to wear, I can stare at it sparkling for hours, I got to pick exactly the size and cut I wanted without needing to compromise, and it did not put a financial burden on us — we can continue to invest our money in places where we will have better returns than in precious gems. We feel good knowing that it is separate from any concerns about blood diamonds. We like the science behind it. We like that it is a stone that does exist in nature: it isn’t completely made up just to mimic diamonds, it does exist in its own right. We like that it has more warmth and faint color to it than a diamond (dh wanted to get a full-on colored stone….I wanted white). We like that it will be durable enough to hopefully end up with our grandchildren or children. We like that its true value is almost entirely sentimental if something happens to it it won’t be a dramatic financial hit.
And what about palladium?
Information available on palladium can be super, super contradictory and confusing. This is by far the best article on palladium we found. http://www.prosumerdiamonds.com/platinum-vs-palladium/
Palladium is great, but I am glad that the bezel setting was done in platinum. Platinum will absorb an impact better than palladium, so it will protect the stone better, and there are more jewelers with experience working with platinum so getting someone to set the stone was a bit less complicated. Also, the platinum is a teensy-teensy bit whiter than the palladium, which creates an effect like a more typical diamond halo — contrasting slightly with the palladium, making the stone look bigger. I am glad my stone has the whiter metal around it.
Sizing a palladium engagement ring can be complicated — I heard a lot of conflicting things from jewelers when I approached them about it — getting the seam where they cut it open to blend in perfectly can apparently be hard for many jewelers, and palladium is a bit more brittle, so I worry that sizing it would compromise the general integrity of the ring more quickly than with e.g. a gold ring. So, I am glad that we got the engagement ring a half size too big and added the half-moon beads to get it to fit. This way I can change the size of my ring with no concerns if my fingers swell in the future.
Resizing the wedding band does not worry me at all — tweaks to the size on the stretcher are easy for almost any jeweler to do and the stakes are lower because there is nothing set in it. Also In My Humble Opinion: that silver-grey color of the palladium is super, super sexy for a man’s ring and I love that our simple wedding bands match.
Regrets?
I wish I had looked at moissanite in person before settling on it. I should not have trusted internet pictures as much as I did. I do like the stone in the end — a lot, it is beautiful — but it is different from a diamond and you do need to have it in person and sit with it a while to really appreciate that. Just like some people prefer a blue sapphire to a blue spinel (or vice versa), some people are bound to prefer a diamond to a moissanite (and vice versa). Unless you are super laid back, you need to see the stone in person.
I also wish that I had taken the width of the bezel setting into account when deciding I wanted the 6.5mm size stone. The ring looks much bigger than I intended it to. Again, in the end I love it, but it wasn’t the original plan.
I wish I had thought about getting an Ering with a comfort fit shank. My comfort fit wedding band is noticeably easier to wear, which I like. Although: I do really like the geometric contrast between the pipe cut E ring shank and the high dome wedding ring… I wish I had considered these things from the beginning, rather than having it just turn out this way.
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So those were the questions I had when I was ring shopping. I hope my answers are helpful to someone else the way other people’s posts were helpful to me…. 😀
