Natural or lab-grown: what to ask your client, what to tell us.
Most briefs arrive as a sentence: "She wants something around a carat, white, not too expensive." That sentence is a start. Five questions turn it into a brief we can fill by tomorrow, and one of them matters more than all the others.
1. Natural or lab-grown, and does the client know the difference?
Ask it first and ask it plainly. Some clients have decided. Some think they have decided because a friend told them something. Some have not thought about it and will be grateful you asked. The honest version of the conversation is short: a lab-grown diamond is a diamond, chemically and optically; it is grown rather than mined; it costs a fraction of the natural price for the same size and grade; and that price has fallen steadily and may keep falling, so it should be bought for how it looks, not as a store of value. A natural stone is rarer, holds a different kind of meaning for many people, and is priced accordingly.
Whatever the client chooses, write it down and tell us. We source natural and lab-grown from separate channels and the word on the report, the invoice and the parcel will match what you sold. That is the one line nobody in the chain can afford to get wrong.
2. What will it sit in?
Metal colour and setting style decide which colour grade is worth paying for. Against yellow or rose gold, a G or H faces up white and a D is money spent on a difference nobody sees. Against platinum or white gold, the client may notice warmth from I downwards. A bezel hides the girdle and forgives a little; six fine claws show everything.
3. Size or weight?
Clients talk in carats but see in millimetres. A well-cut 1.50 ct round is about 7.3 mm across. A deep-cut 1.50 ct can be 7.0 mm and look like a 1.30. If the client's heart is set on a certain look on the hand, give us a target diameter and let us find the carat weight that delivers it, which is often lighter and cheaper.
4. What is the budget, and what is it for?
Tell us the budget for the stone, landed, in your currency, and whether it is a ceiling or a target. We quote landed at your door, so there is no surprise at customs. If the budget covers the finished piece, say so, and we will balance stone and setting together.
5. When is the date, and how real is it?
A proposal on the 14th is a different brief from "sometime this spring". A fixed date tells us to shortlist from stones in hand rather than ones that need calling in, and to build in time for a UK hallmark or a resize.
What you can leave to us
Clarity, within reason. Fluorescence. Cut proportions. Which lab. Whether the pair in the window matches the one in the parcel. These are things we check with the stone in our hand, and they are the reason the brief comes back as two or three stones rather than a list.
Start the conversation at the counter with question one. Start the brief with us when you have the answers, or send us the sentence as it is and we will ask the rest.