12 Clever Tricks to Get Her Ring Size Without Asking

Summary in a few lines:

Whether you live with your partner/fiancée-to-be or not yet, there are many ways that can allow you to find out their ring size without them knowing anything about this.

There are tons of methods available for you based on your case, wearing her ring for a second, the soap trick, and more, we will get into 12 different methods you can use in details.

While this post is mainly about this, we encourage you to take the chance and also learn how to find the perfect ring & diamond for your engagement ring.

You can find amazing picks like this 14K White Gold Petite Pavé ring on James Allen, or if you’re fan of pear shaped diamonds to make the moment more romantic, check this stunning ring on Blue Nile.

Back to our main subject…

Why the Need to Secretly Find Ring Size?

Girlfriend? Mother? Someone? Or actually anyone you want to buy a ring for them but not sure how to figure out their ring size without asking? We’ve grouped 12 clever tricks for you to get this.

Whether you’re planning for that proposal day for your fiancée-to-be, or you’re just buying someone a ring as a gift, you will find yourself in a situation where you need to know their ring size, without asking them of course.

The one thing you don’t want happening is a very small ring that ruins the whole moment or in the matter of fact, a bigger one that needs to be resized; leaving your lady disappointed with the idea that you thought her hands were that huge!

Proposals, Renew Vows, Gift, it could be for anything!

ِDiamonds are not only for proposals. You actually might get it when renewing your vows, or as a gift on your wedding anniversary, or even someone’s birthday! Finding out a ring size is not always about proposing!

And although if you can’t ask them, it’s most probably engagement ring, but let’s be honest, some men don’t know their wives’ ring size!

In any case, you need to know your spouse/partner ring size without asking her, and if they find out, it will just ruin the moment if it’s an engagement ring, but might be worse if you’re married actually 😀

However, for the sake (and flow) of this article, we will be focusing mainly on figuring out your fiancée-to-be ring size. But again, you can apply those methods anywhere anytime!

Average Ring Size for Women in the US

Our readers come from everywhere, so it’s worth to highlight that what applies in US doesn’t necessary reflect how it’s measured in UK, there a lot of standards (US, UK, European, Indian, Japanese standards, you name it) when it comes to ring sizes! 

As for the US standard, rings sizes vary between 3 & 13.5 as per the chart below:

The average US women’s ring size is 6, and it’s safe to say that most women in the US wear a ring size between 5 & 7 (for the sake of knowledge, average ring size for men in US is 8½).

This will definitely narrow down your diamond ring size hunt to a few sizes!

Generally speaking, if your partner has average size hands, you’re most probably looking for something in that range.

However, even an average-sized woman’s hand may not fit the sizes in this range. Women’s hand sizes are different, even between their right & left hands! We know it’s weird, right?

In short, it’s not enough to determine the range of the ring size as above! You will need to know her ring size exactly since 5 is different from 5.5.

And whether you’re living together or not, we got you covered, we brought you methods to find the ring size in both cases.

12 Clever Tricks to Know a Ring Size Without her Knowing

Knowing your partner’s ring size can be a tricky thing! People who haven’t moved in with their partners yet, might think that moving in will make this mission less impossible! 

However, even for the couples who are already living together, guys still might find it challenging to know her exact ring size! (Maybe a bit less challenging though than if they’re living apart to be honest).

1. Jewelry Box

Check her jewelry box and look for a ring that she doesn’t wear often and wouldn’t really notice if it disappears for a day or two! Take it to the jeweler, and voila! You got yourself an “ideal-sized ring”. 

In spite of this being the most obvious choice, make sure you follow two rules of thumb to perfect your mission:

• Make sure to not get caught! Especially if she’s the kind of lady who checks her jewels every single day!
• If she hasn’t worn that ring for some time now, it might be that it doesn’t fit anymore; because her finger size might have changed. So, lookout for that and compare the ring side by side with a ring that she wears regularly.

2. DDIY (Don’t Do It Yourself)

Yeah we know what you’re thinking. Buy a ring sizer, wait for her to fall asleep, make sure she’s asleep, hold her hand, she wakes up, you wait for her to sleep again, try to spread her fingers to get an exact size.

Well, please stop! This doesn’t really work! We really urge you not to do it! It doesn’t go as smooth as you might think.

3. Check for a Ring Stamp

It might be there, in front of your eyes once she takes it off, some brands do this on all their rings, if you’re lucky enough you will see the ring size stamped from inside, but 1 caution here, she might have resized it after that, try to find if the ring seems resized (or take a photo and show it to an experienced jeweler, they can tell).

4. Wear her Ring and Mark Where it Stops

Most probably, you’ll not be able to enter the ring into the half of your finger or so. In spite of that, you can still try and put it on, and the moment it can’t go any further, mark that point, and the next time you visit a jeweler, just ask them to measure that point for sizing the ring. We promise, it works like magic!

5. The Soap Trick

This one is definitely our favorite! The best and the most accurate; when it comes to ring sizing techniques! For this trick, we’ll need:

• A soap (any bar of soap)
• A plastic bag
• And a napkin (or a towel)

Just wait for the perfect opportunity; her favorite ring setting there on the table.

Prepare your soap bar, imprint the ring on the bar and make it stick, put it in the plastic bag, and then, make sure to clean the ring very well using the napkin/towel (and wash it if necessary as well).

That’s it. Now, take the magic bar to the jeweler and they can tell you exactly what size you should get.

6. Family Member Help

Ask a “secretive” family member or a friend of hers who you can trust (in Bold, Italic, and Underlined!). You don’t want the whole surprise to blow off in your face just by asking the wrong person!

7. Unleash your Drawing Creativity

If you’re a liquid soap guy, we get it. No need to rush to the supermarket and buy a solid bar, you can just use paper. 

Put the ring on a paper, and using a pencil (try not to use a pen as it may leave ink on the ring; which defeats the whole purpose of being secretive about the ring size thing), trace the inside and the outside of the ring, make sure your circles are 100% exact.

Then just head to a jewelry store, and submit your Mona Lisa!

8. Get Help From an Experienced Jeweler

While this might not be 100% accurate, but an experienced jeweler can really give an educated estimation on ring size based on a good photo.

Take a photo that clearly shows her fingers (probably with your hand next to it for a better ratio), they can narrow down your research to 2 sizes (like 6 or 6.5), easily pick the higher size and it can be resized in no time if needed.

9. Make it Sound like a General Question:

Disclaimer: This trick won’t be the best for everyone, do it on your own responsibility.

Pretend you’re getting a ring for your mother or sister, and just want to have an idea on the ring sizes in general (so you can get a larger if your partner is smaller in size than your sister’s hand size for example).

Be careful here, this trick might be getting way old by now, try to be spontaneous and genuine, or just keep reading for other alternative tips.

10. Play a Game:

Try to play a game, like saying that people say: the ring size for females is half of their shoe size plus two, and see if it works with her, pretend to be really serious.

To be honest, as in #9, in most cases this will fail in a lot of cases! So if you’re not the type of person who can come up with conversation out of nowhere, or your partner reads a lot “between the lines”, this might not be your best shot.

11. Fake a Gift for Your Mother / Sister

Or actually, why not getting them one?

While this might not be the most precise way to size a ring, it sure gives you an idea of how the ring looks on hand! 

During an ordinary shopping day, you can get into a jewelry store and ask your mom/sister for help; as if you’re buying her the ring, but can’t really decide which one! Let the store manager help you out and maybe even let her try them on and see how they look yourself!

Another approach is, tell your partner that you need her help in getting a ring for your sister/mother/daughter, and while they are shopping for a ring, make sure your sister/mother asks her to try a ring to see how it looks.

12. Do Some Math:

This is unlikely to be your best option, but still, it might give you some indication. This will require you to be extra focused, to take notes, and pay tremendous attention to her fingers and compare them to yours. 

For better results, try to compare her finger to one of your female friends! And hopefully one of them will have a very similar finger size to your lady! 

She already knows?

Ask her directly! This would be the easiest way, and don’t worry, you can still surprise her in the When and How!

Whenever You’re Guessing a Ring Size: Take This Advice

What if you have already done your homework, but still confused about the final size decision? 

A good rule of thumb would be that you should go one size bigger ONLY. Why is that exactly?

For the simple reason that resizing bigger rings into smaller ones can be done in 99% of the cases. Whilst, for the other way around is not that easy; since resizing down is much more convenient to a jeweler, specially when it’s a very small resize!

Resizing a ring from 7 to 6.5 or 6 would be easy, but don’t go to the jeweler with a ring of size 9, and ask them to make it 6!

Also, even with larger ring sizes, she can still use it until you get it resized. She can also use ring guards for a good time as they are a very easy & actually a perfect temporary solution to hold the ring on the finger; preventing it from falling or slipping off her finger!

There are many types of ring guards, here are some:

Online Ring Sizer

Many of the major online diamond retailers can send you a free ring sizer. You can also find some online tools that’ll give you more details on how to measure the exact size of her finger using rulers or even credit cards measurements!

Here are the links to the known tools by major online stores that we suggest:

James Allen Virtual Ring Sizer

Blue Nile Ring Sizer

Whiteflash Ring Size Tool

Summary

We believe that we’ve mentioned every possible way to get her ring size like a pro! And remember, if you’re ever in doubt, always go one size larger.

We recommend picking the method that fits your case secretly, rather than the accuracy of it, getting 1 size larger and still make a surprise is better than getting it 100% accurate but she finds out.