Sapphire Engagement Rings: The Ultimate Guide

Sapphires are rated 9 on the Moh’s hardness scale. They’re second only to diamonds, when it comes to hardness. This makes them absolutely perfect for an engagement ring.

The measure for hardness basically tells us how likely a stone is to get scratched. Hardness is determined on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the hardest and least scratch prone. We spoke to Sunil Sethi, our resident Gemologist about what this implies for your jewellery. “Generally, we recommend that you use a stone with hardness 7 or better in you engagement rings. This will make sure they last longer, shine brighter and age more gracefully as time goes on”, said Sunil.

With a hardness of 9, your Sapphire engagement ring is unlikely to pick up scratches for years to come. What this means is that your stone will appear like new for many many years.

A lot of thought is put into the stones we use in our jewellery, and rightly so. Buying the perfect ring can be a confusing journey. There’s a lot to consider. But we try to make it as easy as possible for you. We scourge the market to see what’s available, and choose the stones that are just right for your ideal engagement ring. Here’s what we look at while analysing Sapphires:

When it comes to Sapphires Engagement Rings, colour is the most important factor. It can completely change the look of your ring. This is important also because Sapphires are present in a wide range of colours. Finding the perfect hue is difficult. After much experimentation, we narrowed down on the hues we use:

• An Indigo Blue Sapphire
• A Rose Pink Sapphire
• A Honey Yellow Sapphire
• A range of Teal Sapphires

Each colour is picked so it looks vibrant indoors and outdoors. This is particularly important while picking blue sapphires. Darker shades tend to fade to black when worn indoors. While lighter shades appear pale when worn outdoors. Finding the perfect colour is super important!

All of our rings are designed so that they go hand in hand with the sapphire hues we offer to you.

It’s not unusual for Sapphires to showcase inclusions. Impurities that are visible to the naked eye are very common. That’s just the nature of the stone. Naked eye clear stones are rare, and valued highly. These are the qualities we typically use in our Sapphire engagement rings. We think this improves the ring’s visual style by leaps and bounds. At times, we also look at the origin of the stone. Sapphires mined in Kanchanburi, close to Bangkok, are unclear by their very nature. But Ceylon Blue Sapphires are clearer, and offer a lustre that is absent in the Bangkok Sapphires. For this reason, we prefer to work with Ceylon Sapphires.

Cut is extremely important to bring out the lustre in sapphires. Typically, well cut stones display better lustre and colour, and may also display better clarity. We’re very particular about the cut of the stones we use in your Sapphire Engagement Rings. We happily pay our supply chain extra for this feature.

Each and every piece we use in our Sapphire Engagement Rings is analysed as a whole. We’ve made countless trial pieces and after many mistakes and considerations, narrowed down the colour of the sapphires we wish to use. Same with clarity and cut. The process of selecting the perfect stone starts off along with the design of the ring. Right from the first sketch, we’re obsessive about what goes hand in hand with the design we offer to you. We’re not designing for now. Jewellery pieces are worn over a lifetime, and sometimes even longer. Our decisions and design choices reflect these realities.

The vivid colours of your sapphire engagement ring can be contrasted perfectly with a diamond band or halo. Kate Middleton’s ring consists of a centre blue sapphire surrounded by a halo. All of our Sapphire Engagement Rings come with diamond accents to enhance the look of your engagement ring.

The pieces we use in our jewellery are typically sourced from the Madagascar, Srilanka, Australia or the USA. These places offer some of the best quality Sapphires in the world. In fact, some of our teal sapphires are a speciality of a mine based in Madagascar. They are expertly cut by our partners, and made available to you. All of our Sapphires are vetted to be natural, and come from fair trade sources that conform to international standards. Each sapphire engagement ring you purchase also comes with a certificate of quality from GIA, IGI or GJEPC.

It’s fairly normal for certain sapphires to be heated ex. Pink, Yellow and in some cases Teal sapphires too. This also increases their value. Typically, colour is concentrated in certain regions of a stone. Heat treatment alters this to a more evenly spread out hue that’s more pleasing to the eye. This treatment is permanent in nature, so you need not worry about the stone getting unsaturated over time.

We’d recommend you care for this piece like you would any other piece of jewellery. Take it off before you enter the shower, or go for a swim. Also, keep it away from chemicals and oils. Like any transparent stone, Sapphires may display oiliness over a period of time. This may dim the sparkle of the stone too. But worry not, it’s easy to get rid of the layer of oil on your stone. Simply use a soft tooth brush and some soap water to clean your ring.

Sapphires are available in a wide variety of exotic shapes. The colour density of a sapphire means it looks on point in pretty much any shape you can think of. Round sapphires are the one’s most widely available. They offer a wider variety of colour and clarity. But of late, other shapes have been gaining popularity too:

• Cushion cut sapphires
• Emerald cut sapphires
• Asscher cut sapphires
• Oval cut sapphires

We offer round and oval cut sapphire engagement rings in our Ready To Order Collection. Other shapes are offered in Our Made To Order Collection.

Due to the vivid colours that a sapphire possesses, it’s perfectly fine to use Sapphires of all sizes. But we also account for proportions in our rings, and so we do not recommend using Sapphires that are less than 5mm in size as centre stones. They may however be used as accent stones.

This comes down entirely to the colour of the sapphire as well as your personal leanings.

Most sapphires look great in all three variations of gold. However, some may look considerably better in a particular gold colour. Our Yellow Sapphire collection is available in white and yellow gold. While our pink sapphire collection is available in Pink gold and white gold.

We love some nerdy facts, and there’s a reason behind it. Gemstones are a work of art, but the science behind them is equally important. For example, while Sapphire and Ruby are essentially from the same mineral family, they exhibit different colours. That’s because of the presence of different trace metals. It’s fascinating how these things work. Here are some more details for your reference: