Episode 27 - What Your Jeweller Wish You Knew
Listen to the episode 👇
Episode Summary
Nobody hands you an instruction manual with an engagement ring. You get the ring, you get the photo, and then you spend the next eighteen months quietly hoping you're not doing something catastrophic to it. In part two of this conversation, bespoke jeweller Holly Robinson lays out exactly what she wishes every newly engaged person knew — starting with the order you should put your ring on in the morning, and ending with the everyday habits that quietly wreck a setting.
It's not all practical. This UK wedding podcast episode also gets into the parts of the jewellery industry that don't usually get said in a showroom. Why waterproof and tarnish-free jewellery is a marketing term rather than a material fact. What a GIA certificate actually verifies, and why a diamond without its paperwork should make you walk away. Why the assumption that lab grown diamonds are automatically the ethical choice deserves a much harder look than it usually gets. And why the honest answer to "which should I buy" is almost always the one your budget was going to give you anyway.
Then the conversation turns, as it tends to. Holly talks about her own engagement ring and why she'd change all of it, the proposal that happened in a bird hide in the rain, and what it's like to sell weddings for a living while being twelve years engaged with no date in the diary. There's a listener secret about a bridesmaid who won't spend money, a divorce ring built out of every diamond an ex ever bought, and a rule about the first two years after a baby that's worth writing down.
Key Takeaways
Rings go on last. Shower, skincare, makeup, perfume, hairspray — then your ring. Every product before it coats the metal and dulls the stone.
Watch the claws. Loose threads from knitwear and throws catch the prongs holding your stone. Once a claw lifts, product fills the gap and hides the problem until a shower washes it away.
Waterproof jewellery isn't real. Only solid gold is genuinely waterproof. Gold vermeil and gold-filled are plating, and plating wears off.
Never wear a ring that doesn't fit. Too big and you'll lose it, too small and you'll hurt yourself. Resizing takes around a week and a half.
A diamond and its certificate belong together. Certified stones carry a laser inscription linking them to their report. No certificate is a reason to walk away.
Lab grown is not automatically more ethical. The mined supply chain is heavily regulated; lab grown has far less transparency around location, labour and emissions.
The best man shouldn't touch the rings. He opens the box, the couple lift them out. Fewer fingerprints and one less chance to drop them.
Insure anything over £1,000 — or anything that would be impossible to replace emotionally.
Soap and water at home. Ultrasonic cleaners belong in a workshop, not a kitchen.
An engagement ring is legally a gift. If a relationship ends, it's hers — and remodelling into something new is a real alternative to selling it.
Episode FAQs
How should you look after an engagement ring day to day?
Put an engagement ring on last thing in your morning routine, after showering, skincare, makeup, perfume and hairspray. Every one of those products leaves a film on the metal and underneath the stone, which dulls the sparkle and creates a sticky layer that traps dirt. Take the ring off before the gym, before heavy manual work, and before bed if you sleep under knitwear or a chunky throw. Avoid dragging the ring along metal handrails or tapping it against hard surfaces, which creates repetitive marks on the underside of the band over time. Clean it at home with warm water and a small amount of washing-up liquid and a soft brush, and have the setting checked professionally around once a year.
Is waterproof jewellery real?
No. Solid gold is the only jewellery that can genuinely be worn in water indefinitely, because the metal is the same all the way through. Anything sold as waterproof, tarnish-free or non-fading is almost always plated — a thin layer of gold applied over a base metal, most commonly stainless steel. Gold vermeil and gold-filled are both plating methods, and while thicker plating lasts longer than thin, all plating eventually wears away with friction, water, sweat and cosmetics. A typical plated piece contains only a few percent actual gold by weight, which is why it costs a fraction of the price of solid gold.
What does a GIA certificate prove about a diamond?
A GIA certificate is an independent laboratory report confirming that a diamond came from the ground and grading it on colour, clarity, cut quality and carat weight. The laboratory charges a flat fee regardless of the stone's quality, so it has no financial stake in the grade it gives. Where the paperwork allows, the report will also record the stone's origin. The laboratory laser-inscribes a reference number onto the diamond, permanently linking that specific stone to that specific report. GIA and IGI are the two most widely trusted laboratories. If a seller cannot produce the certificate that belongs to a stone, that is a reason not to buy it.
Can you turn ashes into a diamond?
Companies do offer this service, but many jewellers decline to work with it, both because the process is difficult to independently verify and because the pricing is often extremely high relative to the size of stone produced — in some cases several times the cost of simply buying a comparable diamond. Setting ashes in resin is a different and much more widely accepted process, and produces the swirling galaxy-like effect often seen in memorial pieces. Alternatives worth considering include melting down gold from a piece that belonged to the person and using it in a new design, engraving their name or handwriting inside a band, or setting a stone that already belonged to them.