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The shape of your diamond is not just its physical form but a representation of your individual personality and style. Here at Grown Brilliance, we have a multitude of shapes and styles for you to choose from, so you can find the one that is most uniquely you.
Instead of framing the center stone, the hidden halo setting sits below it and with the function of being the diamond’s base in a “hidden” way. The center stone is brighter from above than from any other angle because of the small stones visible. Hidden halo can be done in different shapes and styles, for example a round hidden halo, a drape hidden halo, which is a more ornate, soft and flowy design, a double hidden halo, or, one of the most traditional hidden halo rings, a halo on the basket, which is the part of the ring that holds the center stone.
There are a variety of settings available to personalize the solitaire style. For example the prong setting holds the diamond in place by small “claws” and is most popular when stylized with either 4 or 6 prongs. The 6-prong setting, also known as the Tiffany Setting, has 6 minimalistic “claws” that hold the diamond above the band, whereas the 4-prong setting, also known as the Classic Setting, offers a more brilliant display of the center diamond by showing it off with only 4-prongs to hold it in place. The double prong features a set of prongs where the claws wrap around offering the illusion that the claws holding the diamond are slimmer. Another type of setting is the bezel setting which displays the center diamond with a single ring of metal around its girdle. Whatever setting you choose should be a reflection of your own personal choice and style that represents both you and your love.
Every piece of jewelry has a metal component that accentuates the wonderful contrast between the piece, the gems it holds, and your skin. Some metals look better on certain skin tones than others and some metals highlight certain gemstones better than others.
A good rule of thumb is that people with cooler skin tones appear best in light metals, such as platinum and white gold. Rose and yellow gold jewelry looks best on warm complexions. Those with neutral skin tones will look great in any white, rose, and yellow metals.
Karat refers to the percentage of the gold in the alloy. Typically, all gold used to create jewelry needs to be mixed with other metals such as copper, silver, and/or zinc. The purest form of gold that is undiluted with any other metal is called 24kt gold which has 100% gold.
The diamond industry is very controversial. Diamonds are often extracted from mines in countries with violent civil wars, resulting in destruction and corruption. These mines are often controlled by rebel groups that use the profits from their diamond sales to fund violence against governments and civilians. The diamonds that come from such mines are called conflict diamonds or blood diamonds. For example, in Sierra Leone, rebel forces used diamonds to buy weapons and pay soldiers. In the 1990s, the diamond trade financed a civil war that killed 50,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. This type of treachery still continues to date. To make it worse, diamonds are also mined in countries with poor working conditions and low wages.
The diamond industry has attempted to regulate the market by trying to track diamonds from mine to retail stores. This process is called the Kimberly Process. The Kimberley Process (KP) is a voluntary, international certification scheme that aims to prevent the trade of conflict diamonds. The KP requires participating countries to certify that the diamonds they export are conflict-free, based on the origin of the diamonds and the processes used to extract and trade them. This is an extremely difficult, but not impossible, process. Having said that, there is no way to guarantee that a given diamond in a jewelry retail store, thousands of miles away from its source, is 100% conflict-free.
Yes, lab grown diamonds, as the name implies, are grown in a lab and are never involved in the war, violence, and conflict so often associated with mined diamonds.