We’ve seen what an IGI Certification looks like and, frankly, we believe it’s just a useless piece of paper designed to jack up the price of cubic zirconia stones being sold by other companies than ours.
As a customer, what information does an IGI Certification give you apart from the carat weight? You should have been told the specific dimensions of your stone in the first place before purchase-- so you should already know this information. You certainly know that when you buy our stones. Does this report tell you the cutting quality? Does it confirm the color or clarity? It doesn't even confirm the claim to be a certain quality.
So if you're asking why we don't provide this service, it doesn't seem like a necessary cost to pass along with each purchase. In fact, it’s not just IGI certification that deserves our disdain. IFI- GIA - AGS - EGL - CIA or whatever, we’re not interested.
We do not acknowledge any independent, industry-wide and international authority on the making of diamond-quality synthetic cubic zirconia stones. That means anyone out there claiming to make a better stone or a "certified" stone may as well be making that claim up from thin air as far as we are concerned. Certification schmertification. That whole industry gets nothing but our disdain.
The diamond industry, as a cartel, has an incentive in banding together to adopt generalized rules for grading of stones. The makers of cubic zirconia are much more informal, and not at all working together. Therefore, what other makers of cubic zirconia call certain grades of CZ, we can't control. We also can't help it if our competitors want to manufacture inferior stones to ours and call them "6A (AAAAAA)" when we call our best CZ stone "5A (AAAAA)" (see our FAQ's “What does “6A quality” or “6A quality” Cubic Zirconia mean?” question for details).
Our expertise is all the assurance our customers need, and as for CubicZirconia.com, we make and sell 2 grades of cubic zirconia:
- 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia (the best: sold wholesale, sold retail, and used in our retail finished jewelry product line; see our FAQ question “What does “5A quality” or “AAAAA quality” Cubic Zirconia mean?” for more details) .
- 3A/AAA cubic zirconia (lesser grade: sold wholesale in bulk lots only and most often for use in cheaper ‘costume jewelry’; see our FAQ question “What does “3A quality” or “AAA quality” Cubic Zirconia mean?” for more details).
Our process to make 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia is simply to use the absolute best formula for making cubic zirconia that we know of, consistent for producing perfect color and perfect clarity every time (see our FAQ question “How is cubic zirconia made?” for more details).
The 5A/AAAAA stones that make it through our quality control process are perfect, with zero internal inclusions or blemishes. The same stones we sell as 5A/AAAAA at retail prices on our website, are the same stones we use in our finished jewelry. To our knowledge, no better cubic zirconia stones exist.
We then carefully cut these stones to ideal diamond-weight carat proportions (see our FAQ answer to “How do your cubic zirconia stones compare with natural diamonds as far as cuts, shapes, facets, measurements are concerned?” question for full understanding of what that means).
Lastly, we get rid of any stones that aren't flawless, or have any issues with creation or cutting (these are set aside as 3A/AAA stones to be sold only in wholesale lots to other jewelers that want the absolute cheapest CZ stones they can get because they focus on making cheaper ‘costume jewelry’).
For these reasons, we can assure you that the 5A cubic zirconia stone(s) you're buying loose for setting yourself or already in our finished high-quality cubic zirconia jewelry is the very best cubic zirconia we at CubicZirconia.com can make, or have ever seen made.
With the longevity of our site (online since 1999), and the reputation we enjoy from having served thousands of satisfied customers...we think that ought to seal the deal! If need be, we’ll even send you a sample pack of stones at our cost and risk to 100% convince you. Just reference this answer and ask us!
Take a look and you’ll agree: certification schmertification.
