Find the Right Diamond

They say that diamonds are a girl's best friend, and as we all know, choosing the right 'friend' is important.

When it comes to finding the right diamond, you should be aware of the four Cs: color, clarity, cut and carat weight. These four characteristics are considered when grading a diamond's overall quality.

A Diamond's Color

Diamonds do come in an array of colors, from pink to yellow. However, when it comes to grading a diamond's color, white diamonds are the stone against which all other diamonds are judged.

The Gemological Institute of America, or GIA, developed the lettering system that is used to grade a diamond's color. The system is based on a series of letters, with each letter grade indicating the amount of color in the stone. The top grade that can be awarded is a D rating, which is given only to very rare, totally colorless diamonds.

The GIA grading system ranks a diamond's color as follows:

• D, E and F: colorless
• G, H, I and J: nearly colorless
• K, L and M: faintly tinted, typically yellow in color
• N, O, P, Q and R: lightly tinted, typically yellow in color; tint can be seen with the naked eye
• S, T, U, V, W, X, Y and Z: tinted, typically yellow in color but may be closer to brown; tint is visible to naked eye even when the stone is mounted

A diamond's color also can be impacted by a characteristic called fluorescence. When a diamond exhibits fluorescence, its color will change when the stone is exposed to UV light. A diamond with a blue fluorescence will appear more colorless, or whiter, under UV light, while a diamond with a yellow fluorescence will look even more yellow under some lighting conditions.

A Diamond's Clarity

The vast majority of diamonds contain flaws, either inside or on the surface of the stone. The absence or presence of these flaws is distinguished by the diamond's clarity.

When judging a diamond's clarity, two types of flaws are considered: inclusions, which are imperfections inside a diamond that can include tiny spots of color or cracks, and blemishes, which are imperfections on the surfaces of the diamond that often result from the cutting or polishing process.

As with a diamond's color, GIA also developed a system to grade a diamond's clarity:

• Flawless (FL): no internal or external flaws (extremely rare)
• Internally Flawless (IF): no internal flaws; slight external blemishes
• Very, Very Slightly Included (VVS1, VVS2): minute inclusions; difficult for an experienced grader to detect
• Very Slightly Included (VS1, VS2): minute inclusions; not easily seen by an experienced grader
• Slightly Included (SI1, SI2): inclusions that are noticeable to an experienced grader
• Included (I1, I2, I3): obvious inclusions that can affect transparency and brilliance

A Diamond's Cut

Many might believe that a diamond's cut has to do with its shape. However, this characteristic actually relates to the stone's proportions, or its depth and width plus the uniformity of its facets. How well a diamond is cut will impact how much the stone sparkles.

There are three categories used to grade a diamond's cut: a shallow cut, a too deep cut and an ideal cut. A diamond that is too shallow in depth will lose light out of the bottom of the stone, while a diamond that is cut too deep will allow light to escape out of the stone's sides. In an ideal cut diamond, the light bounces back out of the top of the stone, generating the diamond's characteristic brilliance.

In addition to a diamond's proportions, the uniformity of its facets, or its symmetry, can impact the stone's ability to sparkle, known as scintillation. A diamond's symmetry can be graded as fair or poor.

A Diamond's Carat Weight

Despite what many might assume, carat does not indicate a diamond's size. Instead, the term carat describes the stone's weight. One carat equals 200 milligrams.

A diamond's carat weight will come in to play when pricing a piece of diamond jewelry. The larger the individual diamonds, the more valuable the piece is. For example, a necklace containing a single one carat diamond will be price higher than a necklace made up of several smaller diamonds of equal quality that add up to one carat.