Diamond education
The 4 c's
Carat
The first of the 4 C’s and what seems to be the most important to most of us is Carat.
Carat refers to the weight of the diamond and is a major factor in the price of a diamond. The larger the carat weight, the rarer and usually more expensive the diamond will be.
Some diamond cutters will try to maximise carat weight to sell the stone for a higher price point.
For example, a 1 carat diamond can be priced a lot higher than a 0.9 carat diamond due to the “1 carat” price tag. In some cases, this means that the quality of the diamond cut can sacrificed, meaning the diamond has been cut for weight, instead of maximum sparkle. It is important when looking for your ideal diamond, that you take into account the other 4 C’s and find a perfect balance.
Carat weight isn’t an exact correlation of the diamond size but can somewhat reflect this. Shape and cut also play a big part for the size of a diamond.
For example, you could have two round diamonds that are the same carat weight, but depending on the cutting proportions, like the depth or the spread of the stone, they can look different in size, side by side.
Different diamond shapes will display carat weight differently. For example, cushion cut diamonds tend to be very deep stones, compared to round brilliant diamonds. This means that a cushion cut diamond will look smaller than a round diamond, because the carat weight is in the depth of the stone.
Cut
The cut is the grading system used to grade the craftsmanship of the finished, faceted, polished diamond. Cut in our opinion is the most important of the 4 C’s as this is what gives your diamond fire and brilliance. An excellently cut diamond will sparkle like nothing else.
The “round brilliant” is the diamond that has the most sparkle factor- hence the name. The best cut grade you can get for this diamond is called “Triple excellent” which means it has perfect cut, polish and symmetry for maximum sparkle.
All the other shaped diamonds are called “fancy shaped” for example: Pear, oval, emerald, radiant, marquise. These fancy shaped diamonds don’t actually have a “Cut” grade as there are so many variations of the shape per fancy cut. For example: a long skinny oval, or a short wide oval. Unlike a round brilliant diamond, that can only be round in shape.
As the “Cut” grade cannot be uniformly recognised with fancy shaped diamonds, they are only given a “symmetry” and “polish” cut grade. The best way to make a decision when choosing a fancy cut, is to see the stone in person to see the diamonds fire, brilliance and scintillation.
When we select diamonds for you to view, we take care in selecting diamonds with the most desirable facet cutting techniques, ideal depth and table percentages that are unique to each fancy diamond shape, to ensure maximum sparkle.
Colour
Colour refers to the absence or presence of yellow or brown in the diamond that occur naturally when the diamond is forming in the earth from trace elements. Colour is so important, because it is what our naked eye can detect without any magnification.
Diamonds are graded on the GIA colour grading scale, which is globally recognised and accepted. The top colour is “D” which means colourless. The scale goes down to Z which represent yellow and brown colour obviously present in the diamond.
When we are selecting diamonds for our customers, we like to stick to the top 5 colours, which are “D, E, F, G, H” These are all stunningly white colour grade diamonds. Any diamond lower than the top 5 tend to start to display a visibly yellow/ brown tint.
clarity
Clarity refers to the natural inclusions that occur naturally in the diamond when they were formed in the earth approximately 3500 million years ago.
These inclusions are different in every diamond, giving them their own unique characteristics.
The clarity grading system is determined the absence or presence of these imperfections. Theses are then broken down to the size and placement of the inclusions in the diamond, and how easy they are to see.
When we are looking at the clarity of a diamond, it is important to see if it is “eye clean” meaning there are no visible inclusions to the naked eye, making it a more visually appealing stone.
The GIA clarity grading system starts from IF (internally flawless) and goes through to I3 (visible inclusions)
We select diamonds from IF through to SI2 (2 slight inclusions) To ensure you are getting an eye clean diamond.