James Allen is a website no? It’s the site where you can choose your diamond and your setting?
If you are talking about that site, its fine. I have bought a diamond ring from them. The good side about this site is that you can choose your own diamond, size, shape, quality and your own setting. However, the down side is that the diamond shown in the picture is not true colour. It depends on how your screen portrays the colour. You really need to depend on the description of the diamond to know the colour.
Their delivery service was really fast. They told like 7 days to make my ring and it was shipped using fedex and it took about less than 5 days.
I have also used the SingaporeBrides forum for my research on engagement rings before I decided to go ahead with my purchase of a new engagement ring, to replace my cheap inferior one from Taka (we are already married for many donkey years).
Since now our earning power is much higher, we are decided on the best diamond cut available. For the uninitiated, the ideal cut for the diamond is even higher than hearts and arrows GIA triple Excellence. Reason why we settled on the best cut? The lower color and clarity diamond will be brilliant and sparkly and still outperform any diamond (with subpar cut) with best color and clarity (E, VVS1).
We went to check out the ideal cut offering in our local stores:
- GoldHearts - Celestial
- Lee Hwa - Destinee
- Jann Paul - 10 Hearts and Arrows (my favorite)
- SK - I forgot liao.... nothing fanstastic
Then we decided to venture online, James Allen, Brian Gavin (both were mentioned a few times in this forum), WhiteFlash, and BlueNile. Our comparison criteria is based on cutting; color and clarity and weight (size).
We are glad we did eventually ended up with JA. For the same specifications, it is still more than 50% cheaper compared with the amount we expected to spend in the brick and mortar stores in Singapore.
I have a video to show how sparkly and brilliant it is in person, don't think it is approved to share any link to any media here.
If you want to see for yourself, just look for "James Allen True Hearts Review 2020 Nov" and click on the Videos tab.
Btw, the delivery service is really slower now, it took around 3 weeks for my ring to arrive.
I was also thinking about online retailer previously… After researching and speaking to friends, I bought from eClarity, a local jewellery store in Ngee Ann City. They also have an online store B&A. Depending if you are buying from eClarity or B&A, their prices are actually better than james allen, bluenile and white flash… plus they are in Singapore so you can work on resizing and maintenance with them. So to me it was a simple choice. Recommend that you give them a text, either Amanda the gemmologist or Jimmy the rep will reply to you. All the best buddy….
Owen83, thanks for sharing, I actually considered the eClarity online store before I decided to go ahead with the US online retailers. eClarity does not offer ideal cut (above GIA excellence). Cut aside and for the same carat, color and clarity, the cost of the eClarity diamond alone is more expensive than the True Hearts ideal setting with the pave diamond ring setting which I purchased from James Allen. If I factored in the eClarity diamond with similar settings, still much higher.
