How to Size Your Finger for a Ring

Learning how to size your finger for a ring is not difficult and can be a huge benefit when shopping for jewelry online. With a few steps you can easily gather the data needed to get your finger sized.

Most people’s fingers swell later in the day from foods they’ve eaten, changes in the weather (especially hot weather), as well as many other reasons. For this, I suggest that any ring sizing be done in the morning before lunch time. Don’t size your fingers in the evening. If sizing anytime after lunch, you could end up with a ring size that’s too big.

How Do I Size My Finger

So, the big question is, “How do I size my finger?”
The easiest solution is to go to a local jewelry shop and ask them to size your finger(s) for you. If you have a ring you love to wear you can take that ring with you, and they can size it before sizing your finger. This helps to double check the sizing for both your ring as well as your finger. Keep in mind that the width of your ring will factor in the size that is most comfortable for you. I’ll explain in a bit, so this makes more sense. Be sure to make a note of your ring size, so you won’t forget and you can use that data whenever ordering rings online, or shopping in person. The more information you have about your ring sizes the easier it will be when shopping for jewelry.

Local Jewelry Stores

What if you can’t get to a local jewelry store, or maybe there isn’t one close to where you live. What do you do? Don’t worry! I’ve got you covered. Jewelers and the like use a tool that’s called a mandrel. An American mandrel is tapered and is marked with sizes 1-16. These mandrels are also marked with 1/4 sizes, 1/2 sizes, and 3/4 sizes as well, so there is a wide range to work with. Your ring will fall somewhere within these sizes. Other countries have a similar mandrel system, although the numbers that indicate the sizes will most likely differ from the US system. Again, don’t worry if you are in another country ’cause the information I’m giving you can still apply. 

Another tool that is also used for ring sizing is the finger gauge set. A finger gauge set is used to size fingers. However, finger gauge sets are not all created equal. What I mean by this is sizing for a wide band ring is different than sizing for a thin ring. When getting your finger sized by a jeweler, or doing it yourself you’ll want to be sure this is taken into account.

Things You’ll Need To Size Your Finger

When a jeweler is sizing you, as long as they know what type of ring you’re sizing for they’ll know which tool to use. So, be sure to tell the jeweler that you need your finger sized for a wide band ring, or a thin band ring and they’ll know which finger gauge set to use. However, if you’re sizing for yourself there are a few things you’ll need:

• Small sheet of paper to write down your size
• Scissors to cut your paper strips
• Tape to tape your strip of paper for the correct size (washi tape is a good choice as it can peel off easily) if you don’t have washi tape use scptch tape or painters tape.
• Pencil or Pen for marking your size and writing it down on the paper
• Ruler for measuring the length of the strip of paper.

Step 1 – Cut a strip of paper the same width as your ring, or the intended width of the ring that you want to buy. Cut a small piece of tape and set aside.

Step2 – Wrap the paper strip in the same “width” of the ring you intend to buy around your finger, and tape it in place.

Step 3 – Remove the strip of paper by gently sliding it off of your finger with the tape holding the shape and size in place.

Step 4 – Gently lift the tape, while holding the paper strip together and keeping it at your size. You’ll want to lift the tape all the way to the edge where the paper over laps, and make a mark with your pencil.

Step 5 – Once you have made the mark, lay the strip of paper flat and measure from the edge of the paper to the mark you made. This is your size in inches, or millimeters, however, this number is not the number used on a finger gauge set or mandrel.

Step 6 – Write this number in inches down on your piece of paper and make a note of the width of the ring you measured for.

Step 7 – Contact me by email, or the jewelry maker you you intend to purchase your ring from and be sure to include this data you collected from steps 1-6. I, or they will be able to help you by providing you with the correct size of your finger for the width of the ring you’d like to purchase.

As you can see, sizing your finger with these easy steps makes shopping for a ring online much simpler than trying to guess what size you are. In the near future, I do hope to have an easier way to size your finger, but for now this will get you started. I do hope you’ve enjoyed this short tutorial and if you get stuck or have any questions I’m hear to help. Send me an email by clicking here and I’ll get back to you shortly.