Before you start diamond shopping, you want to have an understanding of what you’re buying. This guide simplifies the four C’s of diamonds: cut, color, clarity and carat weight, so you can select your diamond based on the same criteria jewelers use to grade them.
About: Diamond Color
General Information
The less color a diamond carries the more sought after it becomes. Color to a diamond is likened to that of sunlight to the sky. The less color a diamond possesses the less impedance it has to its brilliance. Colorless diamonds allow light to be untainted and reflects light and brilliance to its highest potential. Our shop carries the best grade of colorless diamonds.
While we may think of diamonds as being colorless, they can have hints of yellow or brown. Truly colorless diamonds, ranked D - F on the diamond quality pyramid, comprise the highest grade of color. Near colorless, or white diamonds are ranked G - J. Diamonds labeled K and L are also called top silver: M and N are known as faint yellow: O, P and Q are very very light yellow or top brown in color.
Practical Views
Diamond color is the most confusing of the 4 C’s. You really do not notice color until “I - J”. Brilliant cut diamonds are color graded upside down and through the side. Facing up brilliant cut diamonds true color is hard to see unless you have other loose stones for comparison. Once the stones are set, color is even harder to grade. Fancy shape diamond colors are easier to see. Most of the time the color is apparent in the tips of the marquise, pears and ovals. Princess cuts are similar to brilliant cuts in the fact that they hide color quite well. Emerald cuts start to show color around “K-L”. We have sold many faintly colored Emerald cuts and they are still beautiful and elegant to the naked eye.
