Crafted by Infinity Review

Crafted by Infinity Review
Crafted by Infinity is actually a brand sold exclusively by several dealers rather than a brand owned and sold by a single online vendor. There are some immediate advantages to this. The first that is evident to me is that the quality of the product will likely be higher because of the additional vetting process by the nature of having more parties involved. Second is that the cutting house is more focused on what they specialise in and don’t have other internal pressures to save costs by retaining carat weight on their diamonds. Third is that the brand must have some kind of unique look about them that can be immediately recognisable.

As I was browsing the Crafted by Infinity website doing this review, I came across an important point. Cut grading is in its infancy and unlike color or clarity, what is graded excellent today may not be excellent in a few years time and this can have serious implications on the future value of the diamond you purchase. Of course, you don’t have to purchase an Infinity diamond to protect yourself. There are also many reasons that precision cutting and H&A may never become a recognised superior cut grade by the major labs.

Crafted by Infinity makes an effort to market their diamonds as ‘superideal’ and that their diamonds are cut to perfection. They claim that their diamonds are cut to such rare standards that it is more rare than D color and IF clarity. They make a point to say that they cut ‘only’ 1000 diamonds per year. They say that their brand’s best feature is “Flawless Cut”. I have no problems with most of these claims as they are mostly true. For example, I have heard that superideal cut diamonds are in the top 1% of all diamonds cut and D-E color diamonds make up around 2% of diamonds. What I do have a slight problem with is the idea of a flawless cut. Although there is also no standard for what a flawless cut is, we do know that most H&A diamonds have minor defects. Diamonds that have several minor defects or major defects will not be considered H&A by some vendors. So I can tell how strict a H&A vendor is by how many defects they accept as part of their brand. A H&A vendor that markets their diamonds as ‘Flawless’ to me is potentially misleading consumers and together with the whole marketing pitch makes me feel like I am expecting top-notch quality even amongst the H&A vendors. We will find out later in this review whether the Infinity diamonds hold up against such high expectations.

Crafted by Infinity does not sell diamonds on their own website. However, on their homepage you will find a link to their dealers around the world. As I look through the list, the two vendors I have heard of already are High Performance Diamonds by Wink Jones and Diamonds by Lauren by David Friedlander. Basically, each online vendor will carry the same list of Infinity diamonds for the same price, using the same search engine. The search engine is pretty basic and you can only choose between round and princess cuts, the 4C’s, and price. Lets see if there really isn’t any need to have advanced search functions.

First there are only about 100 diamonds in total, I managed to find 6 G to H VS2 diamonds to compare. The information on Infinity’s system is not presented very well, with the table, depth, pavilion, and crown information only visible if you click on a button labelled ‘expert details’. Even then, there isn’t any information about the lower girdles length or girdle thickness information and you have to find that information on the AGS lab report yourself. As far as I can tell, all of the Infinity diamonds are graded by AGS, which has both its positives and negatives, as you will know from previous tutorials. One positive is that Infinity provides AGS lab reports that also have the hearts view so that provides an independent verification of the hearts image.

I collected the data from the 6 diamonds and put in them in the table below:

Infinity Table

All of these diamonds have thin to medium girdles, which helps the 1.01 ct stone to reach that 6.5mm mark that is expected of an ideal 1ct diamond. Apart from this, the only things I can comment on is that the table size is generally between 55% and 57% and each one has a total depth under 62%. From the small sample above, it does not seem like there is a specific pavilion angle that these diamonds are cut to like the Brian Gavin Diamonds stones. This is a positive for those who are about squeezing the last bit of carat weight into the diameter of the diamond. The theme of spread continues as I look at the crown facets. All of them are between 34 – 34.5 degrees and this means two things – better spread and a brighter stone under the table.

Finally I have a look at the lower girdle facets and all but 2 of them have a 78% lower girdle length with the other two 75% and 77%. Although probably not representative of all of their diamonds, I can only conclude that there is not a single contrast pattern of the arrows on all Infinity diamonds and you still have that freedom to choose your preference. It also seems like the lower girdle facets are cut so that they are just under 80% in order to achieve a hearts pattern that does not have a clear clef in the middle of the hearts.

So far all of the numbers look good right? Well we know that these numbers only tell half the story so lets get into the hearts image and idealscope images to see how the Crafted by Infinity diamonds hold up to their reputation.

Light Performance

Here are the 6 idealscope images.

table of idealscopes

From a light performance point of view, all of the diamonds above seem to look good in their idealscopes with no visible leakage. The light return also seems very balanced throughout the diamond. Although it may seem like there is no leakage in the upper girdles and that there may be some crown-only painting, it is not the case here as I think this is more to do with photography.

actual1    Eightstar
You can see from the actual image of the 1.03 GVS2 on the left that there is some contrast in the upper girdles. On the right is what an idealscope of a Eightstar diamond that has crown-only painting looks like. So you can see that the idealscope images of the Infinity diamonds are clearly not the same.

Optical Symmetry

table of hearts

The first diamond in the table is the 1.03 GVS2. Apart from some yaw and distorted V’s, which I consider minor, there is a defect here that some H&A vendors could find cause as to reject this diamond as a true H&A. Take a look at the heart at the 12 o’clock position, this heart is slightly smaller than most of the rest. You can see that the gap between the heart and the V is bigger than all the rest apart from the opposing heart. The idealscope tells the story more clearly the larger hotspot in between the second and third arrow is a clear indicator of a smaller heart. In the case of this diamond, the opposing heart is also slightly smaller. This helps the diamond visually but it still misses the mark as a true H&A in my books.

Surprisingly, the rest of the diamonds have some serious problems with yaw. The V’s are also mostly distorted and there is some serious misalignment of hearts as well as V’s. Although not a cut issue, I also noticed an inclusion that reflects around the pavilion in the third diamond, what is known as a ‘reflector’. This is not good for a VS2 diamond and you can definitely find better. There are actually all sorts of H&A defects in these examples. In the fifth diamond, the hearts are touching the V’s indicating shorter lower girdles. I’m pretty sure that this is the diamond with the 75% lower girdle length as stated on the certificate. The problem is that this heart image indicates lower girdles that are tending to the short end of the average stated. If you are not a H&A purist and like thicker arrows producing bolder flashes, then this 1.05 HVS2 may actually be one of the better choices out of this sample as the defects do not affect the face up view. The defects to the lower girdles go both ways as although the stated longest lower girdles were 78%, it is clear that some of these hearts, in particular the third diamond, display a clef in the middle that could also cause a rejection for some H&A vendors.

Price

The 1.03 HVS2 in this review costs $10,687. A quick comparison with James Allen, which I have found to have both great prices and quality that at least match what I have seen at Crafted By Infinity, shows a 1.01 HVS2 True Heart to cost $8,310. This is a 26% premium on a price per carat basis. This is before an up to 5% pricescope discount on James Allen, you get the idea…

Value Added Services

As Crafted by Infinity is not a retailer themselves, each of their dealers will have their own value added services so I will not go over them here. There is one interesting value add that Crafted by Infinity provides and that is their ‘Meet the Cutter’ events. This gives a chance for any Infinity owners to go to any one of their dealers who is holding one of these events where they get to meet the person who cuts their diamond. I guess this may appeal to some of you out there.

Conclusion

I have to say that I am a bit shocked to see some of these H&A defects on Crafted by Infinity diamonds. This is because I previously held their diamonds in high regard due to their great reputation and the price premium they command. Crafted by Infinity produces beautiful diamonds and that’s for sure. But I have found them not to hold up to their claims that their diamonds are cut flawlessly, at least to my standards here, which are influenced by the general quality that I see amongst the online vendors that anyone in the world has easy access to. A positive for Infinity diamonds is that I have found that they are cut for spread and you will get a good sized diamond for the stated carat weight. This also means that their diamonds tend toward the brighter side of my recommended range of proportions rather than the dispersive side. Their excellent spread is due to their attention given to the thin to medium girdles, close to 56% table percentage, 40.7-degree pavilion angles, and close to 34-degree crown angles. All things considered, I actually wouldn’t recommend Crafted by Infinity to my readers as I do believe that there are better and cheaper alternatives out there.