"What type of gemstone are you after?"

This is the Lei è Engagement Ring Journal.

Discover how to maximise your budget, decode the diamond industry, and ensure a smooth consultation experience.

Bespoke Consultation Series,
…what you’ll need know at each stage.

Here is the roadmap;

1. Are you looking for a gemstone or diamond?

2. What type of stone are you after?

3. What colour gemstone or diamond?

4. What cut (shape) for the stone?

5. What design style are you interested in?

6. What is your budget range?

QUESTION TWO

“What type of stone are you after?”

This question is specifically for those of you looking for a coloured gemstone. If you are after a diamond, we’ll generally just jump through to question 3 in the consultation.

So, to comb through a quick briefing, here’s a very short breakdown of the main gemstones we look at for engagement rings:

1. Sapphires; by far the main option for a coloured gemstone option in engagement rings. They cover every single colour, besides red. A red sapphire, it’s simply called a Ruby. A ruby is just a red colour hue option of the sapphire stone. 

There are amazing bi-colours, called ‘parti sapphires’, many of which are native to Australia. These are the most sought after coloured gemstone option. The characteristics of a parti sapphire that garners the appeal, is the individualism you get with this each stone. The unique colour zoning makes it even more so ‘one of a kind’. 

We will commonly find ourselves jumping between yellow sapphires and yellow diamonds. These two battle it out often. Look for untreated yellow sapphires, which have an amazing pastel feel to them. 

There is an entire world of under-appreciated sapphires out there that we often steer customers towards. Light purples, pastel greys and pinks. Anything that gets a “oh what, that’s a sapphire!?”. Thats our litmus test.

Ilakaka Sapphires, from Madagascar, have amazing pale colour ranges of sapphires. A very strong option and you better believe it is fun saying, “Ilakaka’.

I feel as if, our pendulum is in an off-step to the industry and when other colours or types dip out of trend, our ears prick. I have found this with Ceylon Sapphires. Due to their popularity, we naturally had a bit of an allergic reaction to their prestige. We are always looking for the more unique options. However, I’ve felt the pull back to that cornflour blue of late. It’s truly such a stunning colour variation of Sapphire, from Sri Lanka.

2. Tourmalines offer an equally wide of a range of colours. They are generally a more affordable option compared to sapphires, however thats not to take away from their initial aesthetics. 

I stress ‘initial’, as they are a softer coloured stone, therefore if they sit high and proud in the setting, they will suffer scratches and damage that will affect the overall look. So you need to be conscious of this coming in. 

An amazing cost effective choice, with a set of colours and saturations that you can’t find in other stones. Very well known for their bi-colours and beautiful peach hues. 

My favourite type of tourmaline, are the Paraiba tourmalines. They are actually very expensive comparatively, and for good reason. Rarity, yes but far more importantly - the colour and internal needling is absolutely unmatched. There is often a very strong pull towards tourmalines that has nothing to do with budget. 

3. Garnets; everyone will initially think of the deep maroon-red when garnets are mentioned. However, the only reason that I list it here as an option outside of ‘the rest’, is because we have on several occasions needed to go over to the garnet gemstone family to source the right stone. 

Tsvourite Garnets, in my opinion are the richest and most unique green gemstones available. I’d actually put them in the same class as Parabia tourmalines (mentioned above). In which I mean, they are of a cohort that demands customers to willingly sacrifice on MOHs scale to be able to enjoy such vibrant and unique gemstones that can not be found elsewhere in the precious realm. 

4. The rest… Here, we have the rest. 

This isn’t lazy content, I’m trying to keep as relevant and ‘need to know’, as possible. Of course we can deep dive into any group of gemstone if need be, but I want to just hit the low hanging fruit and I’m conscious of your engagement-info-bandwidth. We’ve got a lot to cover. 

The rest includes your; aquamarines (light blue), morganite (peach-pink), spinel (amazing choice for chrome grey and deep blue/purple)... It goes on, and on and on. 

For now, that covers the needs to knows.

HOMEWORK

1. Establish colour

Next post, will be tackling;

What colour gemstone or diamond?