High & Lowlights of Designing through Rare Carat
I severely procrastinated sharing my review, but as someone who designed her own ring and went through all the highs/lows for the perfect product, I hope this review is helpful! My ring is a modified Betty Marquise with Oval 2.9-ct lab diamond. We ordered the ring in July 2025, and received it around August. The whole process from beginning to end was ~2-months.
THE HIGHLIGHTS:
- The amazing lab diamond price matching easily saved me thousands. My ring looks a lot more expensive than it actually is. We spent exactly $3K.
- There are so many great ring settings to choose from and more. You don’t have to use theirs, you can also modify an existing setting (what I did), or request a completely custom one with inspiration images. They cannot copy another brand’s designs so if you want to stay from scratch, you’d need to modify a detail here and there
- The customer service is very responsive, so you’re never left hanging in the process.
THE DOWNSIDES:
If you’re purchasing your ring online, you need to feel comfortable shipping your ring back and forth (potentially multiple times). For me, the diamond and ring setting were 2 separate transactions. They sent the diamond for me to approve, THEN ship back to be mounted to the setting. In between these step, my diamond got lost, then eventually made its way back 🫠 RC’s shipments are always insured, but you’re screwed if you had a proposal timeline in mind and something goes missing. Also please DO document everything you ship so you have evidence you dropped your items off properly.
QC can vary. Apparently RC works with multiple jewelers so quality can be a hit or miss. My ring setting is a cathedral that somehow didn’t touch the head on one side by a hair’s width. I noticed after the proposal. That little detail meant I had to ship my ring back again multiple times for an assessment + fix 🫠 Customer service was very understanding and kept me informed on each step. Overall, it took another 1-month and my ring was entirely remade 🤯🤯
Overall, the amazing price I got for the ring made it all worth it. But there’s also some downsides to taking the process completely online. I personally used jewelry stores as my “showroom” to choose what I liked, then designed the rest on RC. Just be prepared that worst case scenarios do happen when there’s no store you can walk into.