The Complete Guide to 4C's of Diamond Quality - 2021 Edition

The Complete Guide to 4C's of Diamond Quality - 2021 Edition

For ages, we have witnessed the captivating importance of diamonds, for both women and men. They have long represented a symbol of wealth and extravagance — becoming the ultimate objects of desire.

That means that any flaw — such as the color grading, or clarity levels, will be pretty much obscured by the sparkle of the ring. Don’t let jewelers talk you into spending a fortune on high clarity and color. In fact, unique brands like Diamond Veneer go a long way in terms of providing the look, feel, and sparkle of a diamond at a far more agreeable price range; so make sure you explore all of your options before going for the most expensive diamond ring.

Naturally, even if you have the money to afford yourself a diamond; you will still probably find that this isn’t an easy purchase to make. After all, it can take months to pick out a piece that’s of sufficient quality. We’re not talking about buying another accessory, or even an expensive item like a car — with diamonds, their quality is far more up for debate and uncertainty. This can make it even more important for you to be certain if you’ve got the right thing.

Quite simply, the cut of the diamond will tell you a lot about its light return — which is basically the immense sparkle that everyone is actually looking for. Also, it will make the diamond seem bigger as well.

Fortunately, there’s a common standard for diamond quality — commonly dubbed “The Four Cs”. And we’re going to explore all of them right here!

THE CUT

The first quality that we’ll talk about is the famous Cut — in other words, a factor describing the sparkle and brilliance of the stone in question. If you were to enter a sophisticated grading laboratory, you’d see that they assess the level of the cut by judging a diamond’s polish, symmetry, and overall proportions.

You can notice a badly cut diamond if you see that the light leaves the diamond’s facets, lowering its sparkle and brilliance. On the other hand, if the diamond has been cut with a higher level of skill and performance, you’ll notice the diamond drawing light inside and reflecting it into the observer’s eyes with a flash of fiery brilliance.

When it comes to the appearance of a diamond, there’s probably no more important factor than its cut quality.

THE CARAT WEIGHT

Next up, we’ve got the C that a majority of people associate with diamonds and hear about most often — the carat weight. Popular culture dictates that the biggest possible carat weight is what you’re looking for; women are often impressed with this attribute during the process of getting an engagement ring.

However, there’s a rather common faulty misconception held by plenty of consumers — they believe that carats are a value representing the size of the diamond. However, that’s just not the case; as you can see from this guide, carats measure the weight of the diamond. In fact, two very distinct diamonds can have an identical carat weight, even though their other attributes are vastly different.

THE COLOR

In the world of jewelry and its open market, the color of the diamond is also a crucial factor for its desirability. As a result, plenty of jewelers attempt to extract profit from the fact that whiter diamonds seem to be more valuable.

This is pretty much a fact of personal preference — color grading does not have to be any kind of indicator when it comes to the actual quality of a diamond.

THE CLARITY

Finally, we arrive at the last C — the clarity. This diamond rating is actually a combination of a couple of different factors; such as the placement, relief, and a number of the diamond’s inclusions. Just like with color, diamond purchasers tend to put too much stock into clarity as an indicator of quality. They believe that inclusions are a sign of lacking durability and a bad appearance; which simply isn’t the case.

Any jeweler who tells you that he sees inclusions clearly is probably wrong; in reality, when it comes to a majority of gem-grade diamonds, you won’t be able to see the inclusions unless you use a lot of magnification — there’s almost no chance of spotting it using just the naked eye.

WHAT MATTERS THE MOST?

Considering all of the basics of the 4Cs of diamond quality that we’ve mentioned above — what should you think about the most while choosing an engagement ring? Well, one of the biggest mistakes that you could make is paying huge prices for high color diamonds with huge clarity ratings. Actually, this won’t make the diamond any noticeably more sparkly and beautiful than the rest.

You don’t want to be a customer that prioritizes the wrong factors here - and pay extraordinary amounts of money for virtually invisible features. If you ask us, there’s no aspect of a diamond more crucial to its appearance than its cut.

As you will notice when you compare different diamond rings, clarity and color grades really don’t result in much of a difference when you put two rings next to one another; on the other hand, higher grades in these two Cs result in enormous prices. This is especially true for clarity, where even experienced professionals can’t notice specific inclusions in any diamond without the proper magnification tools.

Of course, this is not saying that you shouldn’t buy a more expensive diamond ring if you want to; it could be symbolic, or an amazingly grand gesture. We’re just looking out for you by providing the realistic practicalities of the situation.

WRAPPING UP

As you can see, purchasing diamond rings has more factors to it than you might initially think. But all you need to do is to choose your own purchasing philosophy and stick to it regardless of the rings that you’re presented with.

One of those is focusing the most on the cut of the ring — and apart from that, we also advise only dealing with jewelers that you have confidence in. The last thing you want is to be swindled by someone who has more experience, and there are diamond scams out there. Stick to respected brand names and think about cut grading, though — and you should have no trouble at all! Soon enough, you’ll be equipped with the engagement ring of your dreams.