Beyond great entertainment that brought in $170+ million US dollars at the box office globally, few movies have been more influential in stirring a call for change than this 5-time Academy Award nominated film.
For humanity: the world became more aware of the human rights abuses, dangerous labor practices, terrorist funding, money laundering, and environmental destruction wrought by the mined natural diamond industry.
For our business: new customers had yet another powerful reason to choose our 5A diamond-quality CubicZirconia.com CZ stones instead of buying a mined, natural diamond.
For the marriage-minded, engagement proposal planner with a future fianceé on the fence about choosing natural mined diamonds or an alternative: he/she can simply have a movie night and watch Blood Diamond together (you won’t have to say much, and if you haven’t seen it…he/she will want to talk after watching).
The discussion with your future spouse about a non-diamond engagement ring can be a tough conversation when society has a certain expectation but you want to do something different. We call it being "between a rock and a hard place". This article will provide a few ideas and resources to help couples talk through the options for a non-mined-diamond alternative. Just as you can create your own wedding experience, you can choose an engagement ring that actually reflects your values-- individually and as a couple. And if you do it together, it's a great test-drive of many future values-driven decisions a marriage will be better off for if a couple makes together.
Ants are thrifty and efficient, work hard and save, exercise plenty, look to the future and manage to get everything they can out of everything they’ve got. Grasshoppers prioritize rest, play and partying, and tend to spend more than they earn (eat more than they harvest). It could be because they’re lazier and more wasteful than ants, though in a judgment-free zone we’d just say they prefer to enjoy today without worries about tomorrow.So what happens when an ant (saver) marries a grasshopper (spender)?It should be pretty obvious that a marriage between the an ant and a grasshopper CAN be troublesome and MAY end badly in our opinion...unless the 2 agree to do some or all of these 9 things.
Today we’re sharing a brief roundup of some of the more common scams, deceptions, manipulations and money-grabbing tactics used by unethical jewelers that give our industry a bad rap.
We wanna arm you with the knowledge that each of these common scams and unethical business practices exist...because, once you see it, you can’t UNSEE IT.
In some cases, police and governments have gotten involved. But in most cases, it’s up to ethical jewelry companies to call out the bad actors in our industry.
We hope this 5 minute read can give you the info to spot these shenanigans, and we can rest assured that our friends and customers won’t be deceived (again).
Take a look at the Google Trends for “cubic zirconia” (what we make and sell) versus “fake diamond”, “man made diamond” and “artificial diamond”.
What's more popular?
Fake diamonds
Artificial diamonds
Man made diamonds
Cubic zirconiaHere's what the Google search research says...
"I’m a beginner at poker”, she said before we started the game. Then she took all my poker chips (it seemed like she KNEW WHAT CARDS I WAS HOLDING!)-- plus three flawless 3 carat stones the game observers at the same party believed were genuine diamonds worth hundreds of thousands of US dollars. My super sneaky wife is the reason why. Here's the story...Plus I'll explain how if you ever lose a single stone you purchased from CubicZirconia.com, it won’t be expensive to replace.
Since the founding of our website-- check out our top, most-read 17 blog posts to date! Topics include diamond deprogramming, relationship tips, engagement proposal ideas and stories, product care and cleaning, picking the right engagement ring, gift ideas and what factors make our 5A diamond-quality cubic zirconia stones the best!
How are diamonds mined? What is the environmental impact of diamond mining? Are there any environmental benefits of using Cubic Zirconia instead?
Mass retailers that sell jewelry are always getting caught red-handed selling items manufactured with materials that are suspect. The result? Toxic jewelry.
Please take a look at today's article. It’s no fun to read, and it was no fun to write. But reading this may save the life of someone you care about (or his/her brain, kidneys, bones, or reproductive function)
Did you know a piece of finished jewelry that is complete except for setting stones – example: earrings, ring or pendant – is called a "mounting"? Every single one of our pieces of jewelry can be purchased as a “mounting” without stones. And of course, you can do so less expensively than the piece fully-set with our CZ stones. You don’t need to be a jeweler/jewelry company for a B2B purchase, either; anyone can buy the mountings we manufacture with a few conditions.
Want to write and publish a guest blog post for the CubicZirconia.com blog? You are welcome to get in touch after reading these “Rules for accepted guest blog posts”.
Sorry, but in most cases “grandma’s jewelry organizer” where everything is jumbled together is a BIG NO-NO. Be aware of what other objects that you/your jewelry may come into contact with and store your rings, earrings, pendants and more safely with these jewelry storage tips.
The Moh's Scale of Hardness ranks minerals, gemstones, metals and other materials based on what material scratches what other materials, and what materials are scratched by it in return. Basically, a material can be scratched by anything ranked above it and can scratch anything ranked below it. This is important because you're going to learn how to mostly prevent the #1 reason fine precious metal jewelry becomes damaged and doesn't last the lifetime you expect it to last!
Journalists have known for decades what anyone who tries to do so finds out pretty quickly: it’s hard to sell a diamond for anywhere close to what you paid for it. But if you need cash and fast...what’s to do?
Enter CubicZirconia.com's "Diamond Downgrade" program, which allows you to keep your jewelry, just sell the diamond for fast cash at a fair price, have it replaced with our 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia...and be assured that no one will ever know the difference.
Diamonds are universally measured against the “4C’s standard”: Cut, Color, Clarity and Carat Weight. All these characteristics can also be found in top-quality cubic zirconia stones, such as those manufactured for use in our CubicZirconia.com finished jewelry and sold through our website. In this blog post, let’s discuss how these two stones compare. The more perfect the diamond, the harder a jeweler has to work to determine if it's really a diamond...or one of our cubic zirconia stones!
Customers hoping/expecting to replace an inexpensive but flawless and colorless 5A CubicZirconia.com CZ center stone with diamond at some point in the future commonly ask us if it is possible for us to make our jewelry with a only the largest stone being cubic zirconia while natural diamond accent stones (also known as 'side stones' or 'melee stones) are used in the remainder of the piece. Yes, this is possible. Here's the details.
