JP team Personal Facebook Page

Hello guys!

As most of you know, our Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/JannPaulDiamonds.

This is where we post official news and updates of our company. Our team has created their own individual Facebook page, which allows you to connect with us in a more personal way. From there you will find out more about us and what we do. Start adding us and post questions on our wall! 

Over time, more of our team will be creating their personal Facebook pages.

Paul Hung
www.facebook.com/jp.paulhung

 
- Paul is often travelling over the world, meeting diamond cutters. He is stationed out of Singapore most of the time. He is the key person in setting the diamond standard in JannPaul, which is now well known to be the JP Super Ideal Cut. 

Any questions pertaining to cut quality, Paul is the right man to speak to!

Jann Tan
www.facebook.com/jp.jann.tan

- Jann runs the daily operation of JannPaul. His secondary role in the team involves the creativity department.
 If you want to create your own story in your ring design, Jann is the best person to start with!

 

 

Casey Lai
www.facebook.com/jp.casey.lai

 
- Casey is in charge of any new acquisition of technological equipment in the company. In addition, being an extremely organized person, Casey plans the logistic operations and sets the standard in customer service.

For any special or urgent requests, look for Casey!

   

Jerome Aw
www.facebook.com/jp.jerome.aw

 
- Our diamond and ring videos are created by Jerome. He understands the uniqueness of each of our Signature diamond cuts and how their individual characteristics can be brought out. 

If you’re undecided on which diamond cut to get, Jerome will be happy to guide you!

Samuel Belandres III
www.facebook.com/jp.Samuel.Belandres.III

- The geek of the company! Every new diamond cut goes through his hands. 

The studious nerd in him will evaluate each and every facet of how they will affect light return, fire and scintillation.

If you’re as analytical and detailed as Sam, he will be your best buddy!

JannPaul Diamonds Everything Brellia

The brellia has always been my favorite diamond all time. I still remember the day when i held the first prototype on my hands. To me, it was probably the same feeling people got when they first saw the first rocket launch into space!

Unlike any other cut, the brellia possesses everything anyone can ask for:

1. The X-factor
Cushion. Hearts and Arrows. Need I say more?

2.Brightness
The sheer brightness of the brellia even surpasses most rounds. It was made to show have such high brightness to enhance the whiteness and hence emphasize on the arrows.. Afterall, it's a cushion hearts and arrows! Show it off people 

3.Fire
This the department where everyone loves the brellia. The pavilions(arrows) are designed fatter to create large bold flashes of fire that people love to see from that distance.

4.Scintillation

Since the brellia is designed at the 57 facet mark just like rounds, it retains that balanced scintillation. It isn't made to be a gimmick. It's made to be balanced, perfect!

Till this day, the Brellia never fails to bore me! Always cute, always fashionable, you'll fall in love with this baby once you see it! Remember to always check it out even if your heart is set on a round!

A Diamond’s Table Size

A Diamond’s Table Size

The table of the diamond is the largest facet of the diamond; the flat top surface of the diamond.

The Table % of the diamond is calculated by dividing the width of the table by the diameter of the diamond (taken from each end of the girdle) multiply by 100.

Example: 3.5mm table / 6mm width table x 100 = 58%

The size of the table may affect a diamond's beauty in different aspects:

Spread

Diamonds with a larger table will appear bigger than diamonds with a smaller table, hence having a larger spread.

Fire

A diamond with a smaller table has more fire as there is a larger surface area of the crown facet area, where more light enters and exists at a critical angle, causing more dispersion of light.

Brightness

Diamonds with a larger table appear brighter. This is due to the contrast differences in the diamond. A smaller table appears to have thicker arrows of contrast, leaving the diamond to be less bright. A diamond with a larger table has smaller sized arrows of contrast, leaving more space of brighter areas (more light return), resulting in a brighter diamond.

Scintillation

Diamonds with a smaller table produces a higher amount of scintillation. Since there is more interplay between the crown and the pavillion facets, we will see more patterned scintillation and sparkle scintillation.

Diamonds with a larger table produces a lower amount of scintillation due to the lack of interplay between the crown and the pavillion facets, we will see less patterned and sparkle scintillation.

SUMMARY

Small table:

+ fire

+ sparkle scintillation

+ patterned scintillation

- spread

- brightness

Large table:

+ spread

+ brightness

- fire

- sparkle scintillation

- patterned scintillation

*danger of fish eye effect

CONCLUSION

With all this in mind, what kind of table diameter should I go for?

The ideal range would be 53-58%.

Diamonds are all about finding the perfect balance of brightness, contrast, fire, scintillation and spread. However, a diamond with a larger table appears to have more CON's than PRO's. When the table reaches too high a level, light leakage is apparent under the table. When a ring is worn, dust and dirt may be seen right through the table, leaving the diamond appearing even less bright than it should.

When picking a diamond in the ideal range of 53-58, look to the other angles and minor facets such as the stars and lower halves, these would start to have a higher impact of how a diamond is performing.

In Shaping the Cut Choice

In Shaping the Cut Choice

Every woman wants to be unique and special. Like a diamond, every shape and cut is unique and specific to each of its own. Like each tier within the 4C’s, each sequence gives a unique combination to the diamond as a whole.

The above statements are enough to give you shudders in the choices and options you have to sieve through to your purchase. But fret not! 

To make life just that slightly easier, JannPaul allows you to get an idea of what shape and cut to consider in your choice of purchase through our HIPOSE imaging*, where you may view the various shapes and cuts of set diamonds on a photographed hand.

Step 1

·         Take a photo of the hand 20cm away from the camera; the picture of the hand should take up the entire the picture.

 Step 2

·         Choose your preference in JannPaul signature cut diamonds; the Super Ideal Round, Solasfera, Angel Cut or Brellia diamond.

   

Step 3

·         Email JannPaul representative or bring a copy of the picture to your next JannPaul appointment, for us to work our magic.

*HIPOSE imaging is a part of JannPaul’s consistent provision of quality service to customers

The Super Ideal Diamond: Symmetry

Which of the chessboard appeals more to your eyes?

The left? or the right?

Let's talk about symmetry. And why it's important to have a symmetrical diamond.

To the human eyes we see symmetry as beauty, it captures our eyes, makes things simply, more pleasant to look at.

Take for example, scientists prove that symmetrical faces are what makes most men/women handsome or beautiful / appealing.

But is that all to it? Just looking symmetrical? Maybe I like asymmetrical stuff?

Nope, far more importantly, the symmetry of the diamond, because of it's facet alignment affects the light return of a diamond as well.

Symmetry & Light Return

The above shows 2 AGS ideal 0 diamonds, triple 0's. The one on the right is what vendors these days still call hearts and arrows. It sure looks like hearts and arrows, to someone just starting out, and looking through a hearts and arrows loupe at the diamond on the right will find it symmetrical and fascinating.

However, look at the clefts on the hearts, the uneven lobes, uneven sizes. What does this give you? Broken arrows from the front view? Yes. Also,

Note where i circles the major light leakage under the table of the diamond on the right. Dum dum dum!

Yes, symmetry can affect the brilliance and light return of a diamond because of the way the facets are aligned.

Why does this happen though? Cutters tend to cheat when polishing diamonds, sometimes to save or retain weight on the diamond. And what happens here? We have uneven polished facet surfaces. Which is all revealed in the hearts. A straight polished facet (perfect hearts) allows light to bounce off the facet evenly. Uneven polished facets simply causes light to "slide" off which results in leakage of light. This also means, since light is simply sent in random directions, your diamond will not show a visually balanced firey diamond throughout, instead fire randomly produced, in a smaller effect as well.

Under a white light, your diamond will suffer in brightness, contrast and symmetry patterning.

What makes a JP Diamond? (Part 3: Super Ideal Defined)

I talked about what makes a JP diamond in the basic 4 C's except Cut. Which is the most important and most elaborate of all the other C's, for the simple reason that there is so many things about it that it may not be even possible to cover everything on a blog.

Do note there are some things which I won't go into detail as well to prevent people from copying us. (The number of competitors that walk in to sit on our appointments  D:)

The Basic Cut

Excellent Polish/Symmetry/Cut on GIA

or ideal Polish/Symmetry/Cut on AGS

This is pretty much a prerequisite.

IDEAL VS SUPER IDEAL (Important)

Ideal

Let's first talk about what is an Ideal cut. I'd like to first say that there is no absolute definition. There should be, but there isn't. Why? Originally it should be defined as a proper set of proportions defined by Marcel Towlkowsky. However, you will find tons and tons of jewelers internationally and locally that sell "ideal" diamonds that fall way out of this set of proportions and then they brand it, and they laser inscribe it on their certificate, and they define ideal that way. So at the end of the day, how can we define what is Ideal?

The HCA / Hollow's Cut advisor is a great Tool to help you out with this. That's me and Mr Holloway at the Las Vegas convention, great man who developed this tool for free(also developed the idealscope)and for people to filter out the good diamonds from the bad. There are limitations in the HCA as well which is why its only a filtering tool, which I will cover later.

Super Ideal

In a nutshell, an ideal cut is a given set of proportions of a diamond that returns majority of light. So what is a Super Ideal? A Super set of proportions of a diamond that returns majority of light?

Unfortunately the term Super Ideal is even more misused that the term ideal. Half the time jewelers will just use it for the sake of using it, even though they don't even know the definition to it.

This is probably a poor example, but it's more or less the best I can cook up in my head at this point of time, the Toyota MRS is an ideal sports car. To drive fast, top down, 2 seater, more or less gets the job done. The Ferrari is the super sports car. Does everything a normal sports car can do, but does everything better and looks better.

The ideal diamond gets the job done in returning light, however the super ideal diamond does everything better.

The difference is, between a MRS and a Ferrari there is a huge price difference. However a Super Ideal vs an Ideal can sometimes cost the same, cheaper or slightly more expensive.

Ideal Cut Diamond

- Ideal set of proportions to return majority of light

Super Ideal Cut Diamond

-A Tighter ideal set of proportions to return maximum light

-Every Facet alignment is taken into consideration

-Symmetry is taken into another level despite what the certification says. Tools are used to make sure the diamond is symmetrical from the bottom and top

-Overall light return is not enough, every facet of the diamond must perform to it's maximum potential in returning light

-Brightness/contrast patterning, fire, scintillation patterns must be taken in account. The diamond must be able to perform optimally under all lighting conditions

- Tools must be used to prove these claims. No tools, no claim.

In short, the super ideal diamond requires heavy scrutiny. Everything must be close to as perfect as possible.

In the next section I will cover these factors in detail

What makes a JP Diamond? (Part 2:The Basic 4)

The Goal

Each JP diamond had to possess the highest quality boundaries, in the world, period. What does this achieve? Customer satisfaction, as well as distinguishing JP from any other brand. Each ring a client possesses can proudly say they own one of the most beautiful diamonds in the world, each ring a client possesses is of the highest quality. This is the reason why we don't want to sell lower grade diamonds, sacrifice in anything to try to make extra cash. We have a reputation to upkeep!

The Carat Size JP Style

We never touch flat counts. like 0.30, 0.40, 0.50, 0.70 etc etc. Firstly, it's a bad investment for ourselves. Understanding how diamonds are priced in terms of it's carat size is a big advantage. Imagine this, if you happen to ever chip your diamond, and it falls in the 0.39 category(if your diamond was 0.40), you'd lose a significant amount of value to your diamond. But mainly, paying so much more for 0.40 is just a bad investment.

The Color Grade JP Style

In the American market, warm colors are pretty popular as people like to set it with yellow gold. In Asia however, white is THE diamond ring to go for. If you have ever placed a diamond D, E ,F ,G & H together in a row, You'd see the colors drop little by little, and when you reach the H, is where you realize the yellow tinge is something your eyes can't ignore. This sudden drop in color is the reason why we avoid it. We want our clients to own a white diamond, not an off white, not quite white, not pretty white, we want it, white white !

The Clarity Grade JP Style

Like I mentioned in the previous post, clarity is a big factor to my Dad, he's always focused so much on clarity because he's rather old fashioned. However, i agree to a certain point how important clarity is. By all means, we avoid SI1 and below because like the "H" color, it takes a sudden drop of being eye clean to not so eye clean anymore. Black carbon spots and cracks are obvious in this region, and the biggest factor in play here is: certain inclusions may cause your diamond to potentially chip or crack in the future. Who wants to buy a diamond that may potentially chip? 

Another factor is our filter on VS1 and VS2 diamond. Black spots and feathers/chips etc near the edge of the diamond are avoided. Sometimes we wonder how some diamonds make the vs2 or vs1 range when they rightfully should be placed under the SI range. These make poor purchases, and we avoid them. 

This is one of the best way i can illustrate this to you. Which do you think makes a better purchase? the left or the right? Both VS2 on GIA/AGS. This is why we filter our diamonds on clarity as well. The left diamond honestly is a recipe for disaster. You can argue that the black spots may be covered with a prong, but what about the feather at the bottom left? Cover it with a prong and the extra pressure may cause that crack to worsen. 

The Cut Grade JP Style

This is where it gets really really complex. I will continue this on Part 3

stay tuned! Here: http://jannpaul-diamonds-paul.blogspot.sg/2012/07/what-makes-jp-diamond-part-3-super.html