Earlier last week, one of my friends was asking me some questions about jewelry. Let me tell you, I was surprised with all that I know. After telling her a number of different things, I decided it would make a great blog post, I mean, who doesn’t love jewelry shopping?! It’s definitely a benefit to know what you’re talking about when you’re looking for your next outstanding piece!
So then comes: Carrots, Karats and Carats.
Organic Carrots from a farm..
–Carrots are a vegetable and they have NOTHING to do with jewelry. Please kindly cease and desist from typing it this way via Instagram/Twitter/Anywhere ever again when referring to gold or diamonds.
Cartier love bracelet in 18k Gold
–Karats (K) is the measure of the purity of gold, 24k being the most pure. This is engraved in any real gold jewelry.
Harry Winston Diamond Engagement Ring
–Carats (ct) is used to describe the weight of any gemstone, including diamonds. 200 milligrams = 1ct.
Now that we have that all cleared up. I’m going to explain the color variations of gold.
Yellow Gold – Real gold is always yellow in color. 24K being the most pure, it should be 100% gold no other metals should be mixed in. 18K should be about 75% gold (25% another metal) and so on. This is why you may find your pieces of gold jewelry have different color variations.
White/Rose Gold – Can never be 100% gold. These pieces are never 24K. They must be mixed with another metal* to make the color change. Therefor the highest amount of pure gold they can have is 18K.
*White gold is usually mixed with silver, zinc and nickel; rose gold usually mixed with copper.
THE END.
Well, not really. That’s just my story on why Gold is Gold and why White/Rose Gold is not 24K.
Shine bright like a…
Diamonds are a girls best friend (duh), but not all diamonds are created equal. Let’s take a look at my favorite four C words.. (as it pertains to diamonds)
–Cut literally refers to what shape the stone is cut in.
–Clarity how clear is your stone? When you look at a semi precious stone or a diamond through a loop (tiny magnifying glass that jewelers use), you can see imperfections(tiny black dots/fog) from VS1 down. I1-I3 you can see imperfections with the naked eye (if your vision is good that is).
–Color is usually only used while shopping when referring to diamonds (chart above). All semi precious stones also are graded by the color of their hue. Each colored stone has separate guidelines to have perfect color.
–Carat refers to weight or size of a gemstone. The picture above shows you an average hand with different diamond carats.
This is definitely the bare basics on jewelry, I’ll post a part two next Wednesday. If you have any questions that I can try to answer for you, feel free to email me at SimplybySimone@gmail.com.
Wait, does anyone else feel like shopping for some jewelry or is it just me?! HA. I hope you enjoyed this post, thanks for reading!
XO,
Simone
