Blue Nile Diamond Earrings? Good Cut?

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#2
OogleAtLuxury said:
I'm considering getting the Blue Nile Vintage Inspired Halo Earrings (https://www.bluenile.com/vintage-halo-diamond-earrings-14k-yellow-gold_60913) or studs (https://www.bluenile.com/diamond-stud-earrings-14k-gold_60525). CS told me that the minimum cut on them is "Good."

Do you think that's too poor of a cut for earrings? Do any of you have these earrings or studs from Blue Nile? How has your experience been?
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I have a few pieces from Blue Nile including a set of diamond stud earrings and I have been quite happy with them. No issues at all and I think they look great! Also, their customer service has been very helpful.
 
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#3
iskam.mnogo said:
I have a few pieces from Blue Nile including a set of diamond stud earrings and I have been quite happy with them. No issues at all and I think they look great! Also, their customer service has been very helpful.
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Awesome, thank you for the response! Do you know the cut of the diamonds in your stud earrings, by any chance?
 
#5
The diamonds are not graded by a lab, so the color, clarity and cut grade are all mere opinions vs. diamonds graded by an independent lab (GIA or AGS) will come with a report. Personally, I’d stick with lab graded. Have you tried Blue Nile’s build your own pair of studs option? Looks like you can get a pair of .90 ctw GIA graded ExExEx I VS2 diamonds for about $2020. Those will very likely be brighter and have more sparkle (and as a result, appear larger) than un-graded diamonds. Add in about $400 for the setting and your total is only a couple hundred more than the preset, ungraded solitaire studs you linked above. And these would be mugh better quality. GL
 
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#6
I would never buy even lab graded “good” cuts. There will be light leakage therefore a lack of great sparkle. A triple Ex cut can help compensate for less than ideal clarity and color so I just wouldn’t skimp on cut.
 
#7
FunBagz said:
The diamonds are not graded by a lab, so the color, clarity and cut grade are all mere opinions vs. diamonds graded by an independent lab (GIA or AGS) will come with a report. Personally, I’d stick with lab graded. Have you tried Blue Nile’s build your own pair of studs option? Looks like you can get a pair of .90 ctw GIA graded ExExEx I VS2 diamonds for about $2020. Those will very likely be brighter and have more sparkle (and as a result, appear larger) than un-graded diamonds. Add in about $400 for the setting and your total is only a couple hundred more than the preset, ungraded solitaire studs you linked above. And these would be mugh better quality. GL
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Gourmetgal said:
I would never buy even lab graded “good” cuts. There will be light leakage therefore a lack of great sparkle. A triple Ex cut can help compensate for less than ideal clarity and color so I just wouldn’t skimp on cut.
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Thanks! That's actually what I'm trying to figure out. I totally agree that Blue Nile's rating vs. a lab rating will be wildly different (although the CS rep did imply that the stone I would be getting could be anything from their inventory, so it could be lab graded and could be better than "Good" cut. Not necessarily a gamble I want to take, but thought I'd add.).

But, for a pair of diamond studs that are only 0.4 to 0.5 carats each, I'm not sure how much of a difference good vs. excellent/ideal cut makes visually, you know? I want to maximize sparkle but also not spend needlessly, but I also don't want to accept Zales-level quality just to save a couple hundred bucks! It's quite the pickle!

For example, I am setting them in yellow gold, so there's no need for me to pay for colorless, and for earrings, I know that it's not really necessary to pay the extra for VS or VVS. So, I'm just trying to understand how much cut will make a difference!
 
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#8
OogleAtLuxury said:
Thanks! That's actually what I'm trying to figure out. I totally agree that Blue Nile's rating vs. a lab rating will be wildly different (although the CS rep did imply that the stone I would be getting could be anything from their inventory, so it could be lab graded and could be better than "Good" cut. Not necessarily a gamble I want to take, but thought I'd add.).

But, for a pair of diamond studs that are only 0.4 to 0.5 carats each, I'm not sure how much of a difference good vs. excellent/ideal cut makes visually, you know? I want to maximize sparkle but also not spend needlessly, but I also don't want to accept Zales-level quality just to save a couple hundred bucks! It's quite the pickle!

For example, I am setting them in yellow gold, so there's no need for me to pay for colorless, and for earrings, I know that it's not really necessary to pay the extra for VS or VVS. So, I'm just trying to understand how much cut will make a difference!
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The issue with the stock, pre-set "good" diamonds is they aren't graded by a reputable lab. So all the specs, including the "good" cut and I color, are just an opinions (usually very generous onions). Whereas the build your own studs come with grading reports from a third party unbiased lab. The reports show the proportions and the proportions are what make diamonds sparkle since the proportions control how light is reflected through the stone and back out to the eye. For earrings, you can get away with very good cut as graded by a reputable lab like GIA, but you really want to stick within certain proportions to maximize on spread. Many diamonds are cut deep in order to retain weight (making them sell for more) at the cost of facing up smaller than well cut stones and having angles that don't properly reflect light. Without a lab report showing the proportions, there is no telling the depth of the diamonds (or the other angles, which also play an import part in how a diamond performs). I'd recommend sticking with GIA graded .9-1.0ctw studs and narrow your search to include stones with a depth of 60-62.4 and a table size of 59. GIA's VS2 graded stones are almost always eye clean and without transparency issues. It becomes more and more difficult to find eye clean stones without transparency issues once you get down to GIA's SI1 clarity and lower. I color (again, as graded by GIA) should be plenty white for studs set in yellow gold (even J as graded by GIA might be white enough for your taste at that size since color is more obvious the larger you go up in size). If you really want to get into the down and dirty when it comes to cut quality, check out pricesope.com. Tons of info there and a forum (Rocky Talk) where people can help you find what you are looking for. GL!
 
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#9
Agree go with the best cut you can afford and it should be okay to compromise on color and clarity for diamonds that size. Really, SI1 should be eye-clean but it depends on the type of inclusions as to whether the sparkle will be affected. A great cut will make the diamonds really pop, no matter the size and as long as the color isn’t too far down the scale.
 
#10
My diamond studs are from Blue Nile and I’m really happy with them, but after being stung with the purchase of my old pair (from a jeweller, not Blue Nile) I went for 1.62 ttcw, ideal cut, VS2/D, 55/55% table, 61.7/61.9 depth and GIA triple ex set in 18k yellow gold. The D colour was/is overkill though - depending on how sensitive you are to colour you could go as low as I/J in yellow gold and they will still face up white. They are just the stones I found which ticked all my boxes.

I’ll dig out a comparison photo of one of my new studs next to one of my old ones - supposedly same size - and you will be horrified. As you can get studs with top specs for the cost of the ones you are looking at, I would really recommend not going for a pre-set pair and picking the stones yourself. You can get excellent advice on Pricescope. You won’t regret it!
 
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#11
My new studs - will see if I can find the comparison photo:

55CADF73-E44A-4904-A1B0-A2770E9814C6.jpeg
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Edited to add the photo of my new and old studs side by side - they are supposed to be almost exactly the same size (0.81 as opposed to 0.80), yet you can see that the new stud on the left looks much bigger. I bought the old ones for a ‘good’ price (still expensive d!) but they were clearly poorly cut, although they did sparkle. It was only when viewing them side by side with the new ones that I realised how poor quality they were.
 
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#12
I stopped buying Blue Nile diamond jewelry where I couldn't choose the diamond myself. Granted the items I bought had small enough diamonds that they didn't even give Cut info. They were lifeless, not worth it at all, and never worn. :/ That's just my experience so take it with a grain of salt. I think they must choose those diamonds randomly so there's a chance you could get good ones but I never have. Of course they only start looking lifeless to me after the return policy lol.
 
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#13
Onebagtoomany said:
My new studs - will see if I can find the comparison photo:

View attachment 5112971
View attachment 5112973

Edited to add the photo of my new and old studs side by side - they are supposed to be almost exactly the same size (0.81 as opposed to 0.80), yet you can see that the new stud on the left looks much bigger. I bought the old ones for a ‘good’ price (still expensive d!) but they were clearly poorly cut, although they did sparkle. It was only when viewing them side by side with the new ones that I realised how poor quality they were.
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Wow this was super helpful! Thanks for sharing!
 
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#15
Blue Nile uses “display jewelry”
in their show rooms so what you see in the show room is cubic zirconia. You can’t see the diamonds before you buy. For the money I think Tiffany & Co. is the best option & you can see the exact diamonds that you will be buying.
 
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