Focus On: The 4 Cs

The 4 Cs

The 4 Cs - Color, Clarity, Cut, and Carat weight - offer a practical way to understand a diamond’s quality, providing insights into what makes each stone unique. Knowing the 4Cs can be incredibly helpful for comparing diamonds and understanding their qualities.

However, it is also important to remember that these categories aren’t the full story; each diamond has a unique charm that the 4Cs may not fully capture. Sometimes, a diamond’s personality shines through in a way that’s hard to quantify—a brilliance, a depth, or even a unique flaw that gives it it’s charm.

It can often be the case that you fall in love with a certain diamond over others, oftentimes in spite of its certificate grading. So, whilst the 4Cs shouldn’t rule your decision making, they are a very helpful guide to help you enter the world of diamonds.

Cut

The cut of a diamond reflects the level of craftsmanship involved in shaping it. Whilst terms such as ‘pear’ or ‘oval’ refer to a diamond’s outline and shape, the cut describes its overall design, including the arrangement and proportions of its facets.

Cut grades are only assigned to round brilliant cut diamonds, as they are the only shape with standardised facets. Other shapes are known as ‘fancy shapes’ and include marquise, pear, oval and kite, to name a few.

Proportions play a significant role in the appearance of a diamond and make a huge impact on the stone. There are near endless combinations of proportions possible which contribute to how beautiful the diamond appears. Cut grades range from Excellent through to Very Poor.

Left: The Hello Earth Ring by Ema Inigo-Jones.

Colour

For white diamonds, the colour of the stone is graded on an alphabetical scale. This scale runs from D-Z, starting with totally colourless stones in the D-F zone. The hue of a diamond becomes gradually more intense as you get further down the alphabetical scale. Once you pass through Z colour, you are in the world of fancy colour diamonds.

Fancy diamonds can come in an array of colours, the most popular are Yellow and Pink, but diamonds also come in a variety of colours, including green, brown, grey and incredibly rare colours, such as blue and red.

The colour difference can be difficult to see in a diamond, especially without being able to compare one colour to another. The saturation of a diamond is also held in the base of the stone, so face up colour can be very hard to differentiate. Although easy to assume you would want a diamond in the colourless area, lower colour diamonds can bring a beautiful warmth to a stone. Colourless diamonds are incedibly rare, and antique stones often tend to be in the H-J scale. This often lends a very charming air to a stone and can be what seperates it from the rest, making it ‘the one.’

Clarity

Every diamond is different, and it is common for a diamond to contain small, unique marks inside of them. These marks, known as either inclusions or blemishes are usually a natural aspect of the stone, that formed with the diamond over billions of years. There is a large range of different types of inclusions and blemishes, the most common being crystals - small sections of solid carbon that have formed inside the diamond.

The clarity of a diamond is based on an assessment of the inclusions and blemishes, and the size, placement, shape and colour of them all play a part in assessing the clarity rating. Clarity is usually the most expensive ‘C’ to upgrade in a diamond, as Flawless or Internally Flawless diamonds are incredibly rare to find.

Above: A Natural Heart Shaped Diamond sourced by Ema Inigo-Jones

Carat

The final C, carat, refers to the weight of the diamond. In the old days, diamonds were weighed using carob seeds. Carob seeds were remarkably consistent in weight and widely available, making them a practical standard before the development of modern precision scales. This method gave rise to the term "carat," derived from the word "carob," as a unit of measure for gemstones, helping to standardise diamond valuation across cultures.

A good thing to note is that the carat weight of a diamond will contribute to the size of the stone, but is not a measurement of size. Two diamonds weighing the same carat weight can easily have different measurements. This is due to the way in which a diamond is cut or faceted - some may be deeper, carrying more of their weight in the pavillion, while others may be more shallow, making the diamond larger in length and width.

The importance of the carat weight is entirely up to you, and the look and size of the diamond you would like.

Judy wears the Arc ring by Ema Inigo-Jones