The 4C’s

Beautiful and rare, diamonds are desired for their sparkle and message of love. When you buy a diamond there are four points that you should consider, collectively known as the Four C’s.

Cut

People often confuse cut with the shape of the diamond, whereas the two are completely different, shapes being brilliant, ovals, pears etc and cut being the overall look of the individual diamond. In all reputed diamond grading reports, the certificate of a Brilliant cut shows the Cut of the diamond, showing the reflection of light through the diamond which shows the sparkle factor of a diamond.. This varies between Excellent (being the best – Maximum light reflected) and Poor (being the worst – minimum light reflected). Generally Excellent and Very Good Cuts are considered to be the finest cut diamonds.

Colour

Colour is the common phenomenon noted to denote the “whiteness” of the diamond, and ranges from D (the best) to Z (the worst), and then fancy colours. A colour lower than P is heavily tinted and not classified by us a white diamond.

Clarity

Clarity denotes the imperfections in the diamond, ranging from Flawless to I3 (heavily flawed). Less than 1% of the world’s gem diamonds are Internally Flawless. The two categories of diamonds mined are gem diamonds and industrial diamonds used for example in the car industry and as cutting tools.

Carat

Carat shows the weight of the diamond the word being derived from the Carob seeds which were used to weigh diamonds in olden times, and one carat is 0.2 grammes, so in order to buy a one gram diamond, one must purchase a 5 carat single diamond which ranges in value from $40,000 to $1m and above. This shows how rare and precious diamonds are. On the other hand, gold, which for some is more precious, is less than $60 a gram!!! The cheapest, smallest gem diamonds are $3000 per gram