Solitaire Drop Earrings

CaratLane in the News - Times of India Chennai - July 2009

Posted On 3.7.09 by Kalaivani Sadagopan | 0 comments



City Folks go online shopping for the dazzling

They are a girl's best sparkling buys and also high priced, but a lot goes into diamond purchase especialy in South India before the stone is finally selected. From checking the auspicious time for the acquisition, to keeping the diamonds under a pillow for a few days to check if they bring luck. Diamond purchase is now going for a makeover thanks to the net.... Read the full story

Share/Save/Bookmark
| Links to this post | edit post

Buying Diamonds Online - Understanding the 4C's

Posted On 1.7.09 by Kalaivani Sadagopan | 0 comments

The 4C's are the first thing that you need to understand when you are looking to buy a diamond. All of us have heard of the 4C's - but do we really know what they mean. Here's a brief note of each of them

Colour

Colour of a diamond is a degree of its colourlessness. The Ideal diamond is completely colourless and hence the most rare & expensive. Most diamonds however possess varying degress of yellow or brown. Colour however is difficult to spot with the untrained eye. Infact in the case of mounted diamonds less than 1/2 carat in weight it is almost impossible for people without gemmological training to see differences in the top 5 to 6 colours.

The GIA - D to Z colour scale is the standard colour scale that is used to calibrate colour of diamonds across the world. The Scale starts from D (colourless Diamonds) and goes to Z (Light Yellow).


Clarity

Clarity relates to the existence and visual appearance of internal charateristics called inclusions and surface defects called blemishes. Diamonds that are absolutely flawless are the most sought after and hence the most valuable. The GIA Clarity Grading Scale goes from FL (Flawless Diamonds) to I3 (Visibly Included)


Clarity however has very little impact on the beauty of a diamond upto the I Grades. In India the most popular Clarity Grades are IF to VS.

Cut

Cut can easily be referred to as the least understood C. It often tends to get confused with shape which refers to the physical appearance of the diamond i.e. round, heart etc.

The Cut of a diamond refers to its proportions and affects its light return propeties known as fire and scintillation. Of all the 4C's cut has the greatest effect on the beauty of a diamond. Gemmologists therefore refer to Cut as the most important of the 4C's. Even if a diamond has perfect colour and clarity, poor cut will dull its brilliance.

GIA Grades cut as Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor. Excellent Cut diamonds typically have 97% light return and hence they are the most brilliant.


Carat Weight

Carat Weight is simply the weight of a diamond and determines the size and appearance of your ring or jewellery. By definition 1 carat is 200 mgs. Since most diamonds sold in the market weight less than 1 carat, the carat is usually sub divided into "points" or "cents". There are 100 cents in a carat. So if a diamond weights 3/4 carat it weights 0.75 cents.

I hope this post gives the reader a quick overview on the all the 4C's

We'll have subsequent posts talking about each of these in detail

Share/Save/Bookmark
| Links to this post | edit post

Winning Designs of 2009 HRD Awards Diamond Jewellery Design Content

Posted On 28.6.09 by Kalaivani Sadagopan | 0 comments


Interesting News about Diamond and Diamond Jewellery will start being a regular part of this blog. Our customers are diamond lovers and we believe that they will be interested in knowing the latest worldwide trends on diamonds and diamond jewellery and also see any interesting / award winning designs. This post if the first of the diamond information / snippets series

The Antwerp World Diamond Council recently announced the winnders to the 2009 HRD Diamond Jewellery Design Content. This is the 13th edition of this content and the theme was "once upon a time... my favourite fairly ". Jewellery designers from across the world were called to create designs based on this theme. This contest typically serves as a forum for extending the limits of modern diamond jewellery. Avant-garde ideas and exclusive creations are a must...

A total of 1089 designs from 654 artists were submitted in the contest. 39 out of these 1089 designs reached the final round.

The Winner Isabelle Geeroms from Belgium named her design "Mirror, Mirror on my Hand". The Design was inspired by "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Her winning design was a white gold and ceramic ring studded with 114 diamonds weighing a total 10.28 carats. In addition to the winning entry 4 other finalists were also chosen.

The Jewellery will be displayed at the Antwerp Diamond Museum till August. It will then begin its Global Tour in the month of September.

Share/Save/Bookmark
| Links to this post | edit post

Diamond Bangles - Now Available @CaratLane.com

Posted On 20.6.09 by Kalaivani Sadagopan | 0 comments


Our Diamond Bangles collection just went live!!!

Bangles are one of the most popular jewellery categories for Indian Women. We love wearing one, two or more bangles.

The addition of the bangles category to our website has been based on customer requests. Infact we have been offering these to our customers offline almost since we launched and the response has been really great.

Our Bangle Collection includes single, double and three row bangles in White, Yellow and Rose Gold studded with diamonds only or studded with a combination of diamonds & colourstones like Rubies, Sapphires and Tsavorites.

The regular CaratLane Value Proposition in terms of price also holds for our Diamond Bangles. Our bangle prices are substantially lower than other retail store. For e.g. we did a price comparison with a popular national retail chain and the following are the results:

Price Comparison
Type
Gold Weight (gms)
No. of Diamonds
Total Carat Weight
CaratLane Price (Rs.)
Retail Price (Rs.)
Difference Amount (Rs.)
% Difference
Single Row
12
48
1.00
62,245
75,000
16,234
17%
Single Row
18
50
3.00
1,42,495
2,05,000
62,505
30%
Dual Row
25
120
4.89
2,21,308
350,000
1,28,692
37%

So our bangles prices are anywhere between 15 to 40% lower than a retail store.

NOW THAT'S AN IRRESISITABLE VALUE PROPOSITION!!!

Share/Save/Bookmark
| Links to this post | edit post

Buying Diamonds Online - How easy it it?

Posted On 5.5.09 by Kalaivani Sadagopan | 0 comments

Lots of customers have called us with questions on how they can buy a diamonds online. Their basic concern has been "How can I buy something which is so precious without seeing the product?" We've been told that we need to take someone who understands diamonds and go to a "trusted jeweller" because he will verify whether the diamond we are buying is a good one.

This post tries to address this concern and explains why we believe that diamonds as a product category lend themselves fairly well to being bought online.

Firstly diamonds are defined and sold across the world by universally accepted technical specifications - key parameters being colour, cut, clarity and carat weight. Usually one of the reputed international labs verifies the diamond on all these parameters and certifies it. In such a situation the value addition by a regular brick and mortar retailler is minimal. Online Portals such as www.CaratLane.com clearly list all these specifications and allow customers to search thousands of diamonds and identify one that is ideal for them based on its specifications.

Also, all the diamonds sold online are certified by reputed international labs and scanned copies of the certificates are made available to customers on request. So in addition to viewing the specifications, customers can also check the certificate to ensure that what is mentioned in the site is actually what is there in the certificate.

So buying diamonds online is actually easy. We'll follow this post up with a series of posts explaining all the parameters in details. Meanwhile if you need to buy a diamond in a hurry, just call our toll free number and speak to our diamond consultants. They can walk you thru the various parameters and help you make an informed choice.


Share/Save/Bookmark
| Links to this post | edit post