Misleading Jewellery Marketing Words We Will Not Use

A misleading jewellery marketing word is one that reads like a specification but has no measurable definition behind it, so nobody can check whether it is true. Ten are banned from Signora product pages: vermeil, gold-filled, gold-dipped, unlabelled total carat weight, conflict-free, eco-friendly or sustainable, investment piece, heirloom quality, artisan-crafted and loosely used flawless.

None of these appear on our product pages, and this page is the standing rule that keeps them off. Some are regulated terms we do not qualify to use. Others are unregulated, which is the whole problem. An unregulated word cannot be checked, and a claim nobody can check is not really a claim.

Why publish a list of banned words at all?

Most bad jewellery copy is not lying. It is vagueness dressed as fact. You can check 18K against 9K. You can hold an IGI report number against the digits lasered onto a diamond's girdle and read the same number twice. There is nothing to hold "heirloom quality" against. Writing the rule down where customers can read it is the only version of the rule with any weight, because a published rule can be quoted back at us.

What do the FTC Jewelry Guides actually say?

The American rulebook is the Federal Trade Commission's Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries, at 16 CFR Part 23. The current text dates from 16 August 2018 (83 FR 40667). These are guides rather than statute: they set out what the Commission treats as unfair or deceptive. Section 23.1 is drawn deliberately wide, covering misrepresentation of the type, kind, grade, quality, quantity, metallic content, size, weight, cut, colour, character, treatment, substance, durability, serviceability, origin, price or value of a piece.

Section 23.12 is the one almost nobody reads. It defines a diamond as a mineral consisting essentially of pure carbon crystallised in the isometric system, and says nothing whatsoever about where that carbon came from. A grown diamond is a diamond. What the section does demand is a clear and conspicuous disclosure — "laboratory-grown", "laboratory-created" or wording to that effect — so no one mistakes one for a mined stone. We say it on every page, partly because we must, mostly because it is the most interesting thing about what we sell.

In the UK the CAP Code governs advertising. Rule 11.1 requires the basis of an environmental claim to be clear. Rule 11.2 requires the meaning of the terms used to be clear to consumers. Rule 11.4 requires green claims to rest on the product's full life cycle, with the limits of that life cycle spelled out. We ship to the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, so we write to whichever standard is strictest.

The ten words, and why each one is out

What do "vermeil", "gold-filled" and "gold-dipped" actually mean?

Two of the three mean something exact. Under 16 CFR 23.4, vermeil is a base of sterling silver plated on all significant surfaces with gold or gold alloy of at least 10 karat fineness, of reasonable durability, at a minimum thickness throughout equivalent to 2.5 microns of fine gold. Section 23.3 puts "gold filled" at a gold alloy of not less than 10 karat making up at least one-twentieth of the weight of the metal in the entire article. Ordinary gold electroplate, by comparison, need only reach 0.175 microns, roughly seven millionths of an inch.

"Gold-dipped" means nothing at all. It appears nowhere in Part 23, which runs from section 23.0 to 23.28 and finds room to define everything from pewter to pearls. No thickness, no karat floor, no test. It exists because it sounds warmer than "plated". Everything we make is solid 9K to 18K gold, never plated and never vermeil, which settles the vocabulary question by settling the product question first. The words never appear because the things never exist.

Is quoting total carat weight misleading?

It is, when the label is missing. A ring sold as "0.50ct" might hold a single half-carat stone, or twenty-two pavé stones adding up to half a carat. Those two rings look nothing alike across a room and cost very different amounts to build. The number is identical.

The FTC is precise about weight without quite reaching this problem. Section 23.18 requires that a weight given in points also be stated in decimal carats, that a decimal figure be accurate to the last decimal place, and that fractional weights carry a conspicuous disclosure that the weight is not exact alongside a reasonable range. Despite the section title mentioning total weight, it sets no separate rule for adding several stones together. So what follows is our own editorial rule rather than anybody's law: a carat figure never appears without saying what it counts, and where there is a centre stone, its weight is given on its own.

Does "conflict-free" mean anything on a lab-grown diamond?

Very little, which is exactly why it is on the list. The Kimberley Process launched in November 2002 and came into force in 2003, built to stop rough diamonds financing rebel movements against legitimate governments. It certifies shipments of rough goods, not individual polished stones, and was never designed to address labour conditions or environmental harm. Stamping "conflict-free" on a stone grown in a reactor advertises a distinction that was never in play. Every stone we set is grown, a difference worth explaining properly in our comparison of lab-grown and natural diamonds rather than compressing into a two-word badge.

Can jewellery honestly be advertised as "eco-friendly"?

Not without qualification, and not by us. The FTC's Green Guides are blunt about it. Section 260.4 states that because it is highly unlikely marketers can substantiate all reasonable interpretations of a general environmental benefit claim, they should not make unqualified ones at all. Broad green words imply far-reaching benefits and no downside. The CAP Code arrives at the same place from a different direction, demanding that the basis of the claim and the meaning of the terms both be clear.

The honest version is duller. Growing a diamond takes a serious amount of electricity, and whether that beats digging depends heavily on the grid the reactor is plugged into. We have not audited ours, so we will not claim a result. There is a longer and less satisfying discussion in our piece on whether lab-grown diamonds are ethical and sustainable.

Is an engagement ring an investment?

No, and we will not imply otherwise. In guidance published on 25 June 2026, the ASA's CAP team noted that the physical gold market is not regulated in the UK and carries none of the protections of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or the Financial Ombudsman Service. It picked out phrasing such as "wearable investments" and "platinum investment-grade jewellery" for presenting products as having investment characteristics and implying buyers could expect future financial gain, which pulls the advertisement under the stricter rules governing financial promotions. Lab-grown prices have moved sharply in recent years too, a subject we take up in our note on whether lab-grown diamond prices are crashing. Buy a ring because you want to wear it.

When can a diamond be called "flawless"?

Rarely, and only against a defined test. Section 23.13 permits "flawless" only for a diamond showing no flaws, cracks, inclusions, carbon spots, clouds, internal lasering or blemishes of any sort when examined under a corrected magnifier at 10-power with adequate illumination, by someone skilled in diamond grading. "Perfect" demands all of that plus colour and make that are not inferior. And if a ring's principal stone is flawless while its side stones are not, the copy must disclose that the description applies only to the principal stone.

One more, since it turns up in listings constantly. Under section 23.17, unqualified "brilliant" or "full cut" belongs to a round diamond carrying at least 32 facets plus the table above the girdle and at least 24 below. Other shapes may borrow the term only where they meet that faceting and the shape itself is disclosed alongside it.

What do we write instead of "heirloom quality" and "artisan-crafted"?

A place and a process. Neither banned phrase has a threshold behind it: no grade, no wear test, no minimum. "Heirloom quality" is a mood. "Artisan-crafted" is vaguer still, and noticeably softer than the term the FTC does define, since section 23.2 reserves "handmade" for products whose entire shaping and forming from raw materials, plus finishing and decoration, were accomplished by hand labour and manually controlled methods.

So we name the bench instead. Every piece is made to order in our own workshop in Surat, India, and every diamond arrives with an IGI report whose number is lasered onto the girdle. Those are facts you can check, or catch us out on. If you would like to see product copy written under these rules, our lab-grown diamond jewellery is the place to start. Where we can give you a number, a karat or a report number, we will. Where we cannot, we would rather say nothing than something warm and unfalsifiable.