Does Whiteflash Deserve All the Hype? A Complete Review

In brief:

Whiteflash has earned an international reputation for the elite quality of their precision cut diamonds, and for their impeccable collection of designer engagement rings.  With certification for ISO9001 Quality Management and some of the best added value policies in the industry, it is no surprise that Whiteflash has an unbroken A+ record with the Better Business Bureau and was the 2018 Pinnacle Award winner. Here’s a quick rundown of the pros and cons of Whiteflash before we get into details.

Pros:

1. An excellent in-house inventory of fully vetted and imaged ideal diamonds
2. Developer and exclusive provider of A CUT ABOVE® Super Ideals
3. Authorized distributor for Top Designer Brands
4. Members of the American Gem Society
5. BBB Pinnacle Award Winner
6. Website packed with information including HD Video
7. 100% Lifetime Trade up on all in-house diamonds
8. One Year Care Plan included and Three Year Ultimate Care available
9. Free Shipping and Returns

Cons:

1. In-house diamonds include only Round and Princess cuts
2. Showroom available only in Texas
3. Virtual Inventory is selective and more limited than other vendors

If you’re searching for diamonds or engagement rings online, you’re bound to come across Whiteflash. Whiteflash have carved a name for themselves as a provider of excellent diamonds and quality settings, especially when it comes to cut quality.

There are few places you can buy a diamond with better sparkle. But are they worth the hype and what kind of track record do they have? Let’s look at what Whiteflash is all about and whether you should buy your diamond from them.

What is Whiteflash?

If you know anything about colorless diamonds, you’ll know that cut is the most important aspect for these stones. It has the most impact on the diamond’s appearance and can make or break the diamond. An expertly cut diamond will have enhanced light performance, with excellent brilliance, fire and scintillation.

A poor cut, likewise, will dull the stone, reduce its brilliance and make it appear lifeless. Cutting a diamond to super ideal proportions requires exacting precision and supreme skill. This is where Whiteflash excels. 

Whiteflash has been the leading source for super ideal diamonds since the company’s inception in 2000.  A CUT ABOVE® diamonds have been manufactured to strict specifications for Whiteflash for almost twenty years and are considered by experts and diamond enthusiasts worldwide as producing optimal light performance, fire and brilliance.

The Pros of Buying Your Diamond from Whiteflash

While there are many online engagement ring retailers, not all are equal. It’s important to carefully check what the store offers you and see if it’s worth purchasing from them. Here are the reasons that make Whiteflash a great option for online engagement ring shopping.

1- An Excellent In-House Inventory

The advantages of shopping from an in-house inventory cannot be underestimated. It means that the diamond, engagement ring, wedding ring or fine jewelry is owned and stored by Whiteflash, as opposed to being held by third-party diamond sellers. Some online retailers, like Blue Nile, have massive inventories of hundreds of thousands of diamonds but these come from around the world and it can be difficult to get images or videos of the exact diamond.

Whiteflash has one of the largest in-house inventories of ideal and super ideal diamonds online. The diamonds are in-stock, fully vetted and imaged including ASET, Idealscope, Hearts and Arrows, and 360 HD video. These diamonds are available exclusively at Whiteflash and are available for immediate delivery, providing greater predictability and assurance.

If you’re interested in a particular diamond, you can simply contact Whiteflash and one of their highly trained diamond consultants can pull the diamond for phone consultations, in store viewing, or additional comparative imaging, making the process fast, efficient and effective.

2- Whiteflash Offers Diamonds to Suit All Budgets

Top Tier Diamonds – A CUT ABOVE® Super Ideal Diamonds

Widely considered the Best of the Best, the Whiteflash brand of super ideal diamonds known as A CUT ABOVE® sits at the pinnacle of cut quality and proven light performance.  Available in round hearts & arrows as well as princess cut shapes, these diamonds require a stringent set of qualifications and specifications that must all be met before it achieves the brand.

Not every diamond is qualified to be A CUT ABOVE® stone. This presents a unique opportunity to shop top quality diamonds where all the ‘homework’ has been done for you.  You know for sure that each diamond in this collection has been highly vetted and is of supreme quality.

All A CUT ABOVE® diamonds come with platinum, dual light map certificates from The American Gem Society Laboratories (AGSL). 

If you want to go further with diamond quality, you can explore the A CUT ABOVE® Collection Series.  This subset of the brand features diamonds of ultra-high color and clarity- Colorless diamonds (DEF) that are microscopically clean (IF-VVS).  Each comes with a Collection Series specific proprietary AGS certificate.

Needless to say, the downside of these diamonds is that they come with a premium. This is because of the laborious process and precision that super ideal diamonds require as well as the amount of rough diamond that is wasted when cutting these stones. However, if you’re not on a shoestring budget, paying the premium for a guarantee of world class quality and performance is, one would argue, worth it.

Mid-Tier Diamonds – Expert Selection

In the second tier of Whiteflash in-house diamonds, Expert Selection are AGS certified Ideal Cut diamonds that narrowly missed the top brand, often for very minor technical reasons.  These are stones that are excellent in cut and quality but missed out in a small way from getting into the A CUT ABOVE® collection.

While these technical differences may be noticeable to an expert with specific gemological tools, to the average person, there is hardly any, if no, visible difference between the mid or top tier diamonds.

Lower Tier Diamonds – Premium Select

For the customer who prefers GIA certified diamonds, Whiteflash offers GIA Triple Excellent diamonds in their in-house Premium Select category.  These carefully selected diamonds offer customers access to top tier GIA hearts and arrows diamonds that have been fully vetted.

Like A CUT ABOVE® and Expert Selection, all diamonds in the Premium Select category come with free shipping and 30-day free returns, as well as 100% Lifetime Trade-up benefit.

The reason Whiteflash prefers AGS certified diamonds is because they believe that AGS conducts a better analysis of the cut quality of diamonds. This is why the mid and top tier diamonds are AGS certified. Having said that, the GIA certified diamonds are of the highest quality.

3- Designer Engagement Rings

Many shoppers interested in certified diamonds of elite cut quality also have an interest in setting those diamonds in top designer engagement rings. This is the one-two punch that few retailers can offer. Whiteflash has distributorships with the top brand names in the bridal world: Tacori, A Jaffe, Verragio, Simon G, Ritani, Danhov, Vatche and Benchmark. 

In addition to the designs featured on the Whiteflash website, every style from all of their designers is available.  Whiteflash even offers a trade up program on designer rings to facilitate trade up on their in-house diamonds.

The engagement ring designs are stunning in quality and craftsmanship and there are numerous choices to choose from, be it minimalist or maximalist styles you’re after.

4- Great Customer Reviews

Customer experience is everything, and when shopping online, there’s no better way to understand a retailer than by browsing through third party customer testimonials. This is one area Whiteflash shines. Whiteflash consistently has 5-star reviews from their customers, who rave about the customer service, knowledgeable staff, professionalism and personalized attention.

This is testament to the company’s commitment to customer satisfaction and a streamlined online shopping process.

5- Unrivaled Imaging

Buying diamonds online can be daunting without reliable, high quality photography and videography. Some retailers simply offer a stock image of a diamond, as opposed to photos of the actual stone. This results in buying blind, and as you might know, no two diamonds are exactly alike. To purchase diamonds online, then, the most important thing is photos, videos and data of the actual stone.

Whiteflash maintains a team of professional photographers to provide industry-leading imaging on the website and for special requests. In addition to Ideal Scope, ASET, and Heart & Arrows photographs, each in-house diamond is posted to the website with a magnified diamond image and HD Video. 

A variety of comparison images of diamonds under consideration can also be requested, and there is no extra charge for any imaging service at Whiteflash. A beautiful creative image of the finished piece is also included with your image package.

6- Streamlined Online Shopping Experience

Whiteflash has been developing their e-commerce platform for twenty years and has one of the most full-featured, user-friendly interfaces in the industry. Sorting, filtering and comparing diamonds, pertinent information, and light performance images is very easy. However, you may not like the black background and white text of the site, which can take some getting used to. This is a subjective issue though and depends on the user’s preferences.

7- Excellent Presentation

While high quality and secure on time delivery are critical, it is just as important that the packaging and ring box be of elegant quality. Just like you wouldn’t serve high-quality wine in plastic cups, you wouldn’t want your valuable diamond engagement ring to arrive in a sub-par box.

Whiteflash understand the importance of presentation. They knock it out of the park with their cherry wood boxes, beautiful packaging and accompanying documentation.

8- Social Responsibility

In today’s day and age, it’s not just about the product but also the social responsibility that makes a business stand out. Ethical and sustainable considerations are paramount, as they should be, and Whiteflash is doing its part.

Whiteflash is driven by a set of Core Values that form the basis for their dealings with customers and vendors alike. For Whiteflash, social responsibility is more than ensuring complete compliance with the Kimberley process to eliminate conflict diamonds. 

Whiteflash is also a supporting member of the United Nations Global Compact promoting best practices in the fundamental areas of business ethics.  They also support the Diamond Development Initiative which promotes the interests of artisanal diamond mining, the most vulnerable sector of the diamond mining industry.

As members of the American Gem Society, Whiteflash contributes directly to the main AGS charity: Jewelers for Children.  Whiteflash provides all profits from their special Dreams of Africa fine jewelry line to JFC each year.

9- Customer Service and Certified Staff

Most shoppers aren’t diamond experts so shopping for a diamond can be a daunting experience. To be able to speak to a non-pushy, patient and knowledgeable professional makes the process a lot easier. The staff at Whiteflash are all highly trained. When you interact with a Whiteflash team member whether in sales, accounting, photography, or shipping you will be dealing with a GIA Accredited Jewelry Professional.  Many on staff have advanced credentials including GIA Graduate Gemologist credentials.

10- Diamond Information

One of the core values at Whiteflash is embracing learning and sharing information. This is why you will find one of the most comprehensive diamond information libraries in the Whiteflash Education section, including articles co-authored with the AGS Laboratories. You can educate yourself 24/7 with the excellent materials on the website or call, email or chat to speak to an expert.

Some Downsides of Whiteflash

This review wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t talk about the cons of Whiteflash. Like all retailers, there are some disadvantages to shopping at Whiteflash too. Here we outline four disadvantages:

1- In-House Diamonds Include Only Round And Princess Cuts

Although Whiteflash has an extensive super ideal diamond inventory, they only offer round and princess cuts in this selection. To be fair, this isn’t Whiteflash’s fault. Grading labs only provide cut grades for round and princess cut diamonds, while all other fancy cut diamonds are graded on the other 3Cs (clarity, color and carat). Seeing as round and princess cuts are the two most popular diamond shapes, accounting for most diamond sales online, this may not be an issue for you.

But if you’re after a fancy shaped diamond, then note that these diamonds are not held in-house by Whiteflash but come instead from other suppliers offering their diamonds via Whiteflash. What this means is that if you want to see images of the actual stone, you’ll have to wait for Whiteflash to bring the diamond in for assessment.

2- Returning Virtual Inventory

We mention below that Whiteflash offer a 30 day returns policy, but this only applies to their in-house diamonds. For their virtual inventory, you only have 10 days to return the stone in case of any issues. This can be an issue for some shoppers, especially if you’re planning to propose and aren’t sure if the ring will fit or not.

3- Lifetime Warranty Not Offered

Whiteflash have a very good one-year service program (more on this below) but the company doesn’t offer a lifetime warranty, as most other online retailers do. Some online retailers offer free maintenance of the ring for its lifetime, which includes free prong tightening, rhodium plating, cleaning and re-polishing. With Whiteflash, you don’t have this. Whiteflash does service everything they sell but after the first year there may be charges, unless you have purchased the extended warranty.

4- Showroom Available Only In Texas

This may not be relevant to you if you prefer shopping from your home, but let’s say you’re not an online shopping person and would rather see the diamond in person before you commit to a purchase. Whiteflash have a retail store but unfortunately, there’s just one in Texas.

The Whiteflash retail store is located in Sugar Land, Texas – about a 20 minute drive from the Galleria in Houston.  The showroom features a diamond showing room and cases full of designer engagement and wedding rings.  You will be helped by one of the experienced professional diamond and jewelry consultants including GIA Diamonds Graduates and Graduate Gemologists. If you’re in the area, you can book your own appointment conveniently through the Whiteflash website and go in store to explore your options.

In the future, there may be more showrooms in other parts of the country but for now, it’s just Texas.

Whiteflash Policies – Things You Need to Know Before You Buy

• In addition to a complete satisfaction guarantee, Whiteflash also provides a One Year Service Plan free with all purchases. This provides for maintenance such as sizing, cleaning and polishing, inspections and stone tightening.
• Whiteflash offers a Three-Year Ultimate Care Plan through Jewelers Mutual that extends and expands on the warranties mentioned above.
• Insurance is an important component of purchasing a diamond as this is a high-risk purchase. Luckily, obtaining Jewelry Insurance on your purchase is easy as Whiteflash has teamed up with Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company.
• If you aren’t quite satisfied with your diamond, you have 30 days to return it for a full refund, no questions asked. This makes buying risk-free as you really have nothing to lose in the event that the stone doesn’t live up to your expectations or your circumstances have changed.
• After the 30 day return period, you still have options to return the diamond for 70% of the total price with the one-year buyback guarantee. This is a great option to have as you never know what might come around the corner.
• Let’s say you want a different or bigger diamond. Whiteflash offers a 100% lifetime trade up benefit, meaning that you get to exchange your diamond for another more desirable stone. The only caveat is that the new stone should be of equal or more value.

Final Words…

Whiteflash have the largest in-house inventory of fully vetted and imaged Ideal and Super Ideal cut diamonds, combined with a portfolio of the top designer brands for one-stop shopping for the best of the best. Their A CUT ABOVE® diamonds are internationally acclaimed by industry experts and are unparalleled in their beauty and sparkle.

Looking at all the information above, it’s clear that Whiteflash is a trustworthy online retailer with a proven track record. For diamonds and engagement rings, they are definitely worth checking out. But don’t just take my word for it. Check out the hundreds of reviews from happy customers from around the world that attest to the company’s excellence.