Michael Hill review

The biggest determinant of the cost of a diamond ring is usually the diamond itself and Michael Hill allows you to choose your desired carat weight depending on your budget. In their product filter they have the following categories from under 0.25 carat to over 2.5 carats, although most fall into the 0.51 carat – 1 carat range:

Michael Hills also offers a large number of cluster rings, which use ‘TW’ when detailing the carat weight e.g. ‘1 carat TW’ ie. ‘Total Weight’.

The difference between 1 carat and ‘1 carat TW’ is that ‘1 carat’ refers to a single stone, rather than a collection of stones that add up to a total of 1 carat. A single large stone is much more valuable than many small stones that add up to 1 carat.

So, while this ring is listed with 1.78 TW:

The actual centre stone is only 1.2 carats – you can see this tucked away down at the bottom of the product detail listing:

I must stress that listing diamond rings like this is fairly common practice, but it’s also something that most people are not aware of when looking at diamond rings unless someone has pointed it out to them.

While carat weight may be the biggest determinant of diamond price, the factor that tells us how inclusions, or flaws, a diamond has is the diamond ‘clarity’.

Michael Hill don’t show clarity information in their product filter but show it on the individual product page for each ring. Many of their natural diamonds have been graded as ‘I1 clarity’ (Included 1), which is a low grade on the clarity scale and means that inclusions will be very easy to spot e.g. the large slash across the middle of the diamond below:

We normally recommend clarity grades of VS2 and above to ensure that a diamond looks ‘eye clean’ ie. has no obvious flaws visible.

The factor that determines how much a diamond sparkles is diamond ‘cut’. Diamond cut is a measure of how well the diamond has been formed and it is essential that a diamond has good proportions to reflect light; otherwise it will be dull, lifeless and unimpressive. If a diamond is too tall or too shallow, it won’t reflect much light:

Understanding the cut quality of a diamond is absolutely essential to be able to understand whether it will sparkle. If you don’t know the cut quality then you may very well be wasting your money.

Diamond is too shallow:

Light passes through the diamond and is lost, meaning the diamond looks dull and sparkles less than it should.

Diamond is too deep:

Light is bounced off the bottom facets at the wrong angle and is lost out of the side of the diamond, reducing sparkle.

Excellent / Ideal cut:

Light is reflected off the bottom facets and back through the table to your eye, meaning the diamond sparkles beautifully.

Michael Hill doesn’t show diamond cut grade for their diamonds on their website. Instead, they show the diamond shape, rather than the cut:

When I asked Michael Hill about this on their live chat, they said: “Cut grading are only available on independently certified diamonds, this info is recorded on the certificate that comes with certified diamonds”

The lack of information on cut quality is a huge red flag for Michael Hill. Many other jewellers do include diamond cut quality on their websites – some have it as one of the filters on their search tool.

Michael Hill diamond grading labs

Diamonds are graded on four key factors – carat, colour, clarity and cut – and a host of smaller factors too.

Diamonds which score higher are generally more expensive – an F colour diamond will be pricier than an H colour, if everything is the same. It’s important therefore that diamond grading levels can be trusted – you don’t want to pay more for an F colour diamond if it is actually an H.

This is why independent diamond testing labs are important. An independent testing lab doesn’t have any incentive to say that a diamond is higher quality than it is, as they don’t make any more money if they do. In fact, if they bump up diamond quality grades, it may mean people trust them less, which might mean they make less money. Michael Hill doesn’t show any information about grading laboratories on their website, instead they only show if the diamond has certification or not in their product details.

When I asked Michael Hill about this through livechat, they said; “no unfortunately we can’t list that information online” and when I asked why they added; “because we have more than one of each ring design we can’t guarantee which diamond certification company will have been used for the ring.

This is another huge red flag for Michael Hill because they have different grading labs, they are not sure who will grade for every ring they have.

Retailers do have an incentive to increase diamond quality scores, as it will mean that they can sell a diamond for a higher price. For this reason, I recommend that you always look for a diamond which has been graded by an independent authority – my usual recommendation is the GIA because they have the strictest standards, so you will be sure that you are getting the quality that you are paying for.