While women tend to have more choice when it comes to rings, you may be surprised to discover that there are also a large variety for men’s engagement and wedding ring designs. Men tend to prefer rugged and masculine designs: a simple band, channel set, or pave ring. While men’s engagement rings are less common than women’s, they are growing in popularity. They are similar in appearance to wedding rings, but they usually contain a single precious stone. We look at the common designs and materials in more detail below.
1. Choose Your Width
Men’s rings can be anywhere from 3 to 8 millimetres, though most people seem to prefer a ring between 5 – 6 millimetres in width.
2. Choose Your Metal
Gold
Nearly pure gold (22 carat), 18 carat, and 14 carat gold remain popular and traditional choices for men’s wedding rings. 14 carat gold, although it contains only 58 per cent gold, is often used since, with a higher alloy content, it is more durable than purer gold. The higher tungsten men wedding bands the gold content, the deeper the colour of your gold ring.
White Gold
White gold is an alloy of gold and one or two white metals (usually nickel, manganese, and palladium), and covered with rhodium plating to enhance its whiteness. White gold looks similar to platinum but it is more affordable. Other variations on gold include rose, red, pink, green, and black gold, each mixed with different alloys for colour.
Silver
Silver is less commonly used for engagement or wedding rings as it is prone to oxidisation, requiring regular cleaning. As such, silver is generally recommended for casual jewellery rather than long term everyday wear. Silver is less expensive than gold and platinum.
Tungsten
Tungsten, a grey-white metal, is also known as wolfram or tungsten carbide. Unalloyed, it is used in industrial application. Tungsten has been growing in popularity as a material for men’s jewellery largely due to its extreme durability. Tungsten comes with a natural polish and requires no ongoing maintenance, but cannot be resized or resoldered.
Titanium
Titanium is one of the hardest and most scratch resistant metals available, and for that reason, it is a popular choice for men’s rings. Despite its strength, titanium is not heavy like platinum. Titanium is cheaper than platinum but slightly more expensive than gold.
Palladium
Like tungsten, palladium is growing in popularity. A precious metal, it is naturally white and does not need ongoing repolishing. While it is very similar to platinum in appearance, palladium usually sells for a fraction of the price.