Colored Diamonds Vs. White Diamonds

A diamond is a work of art created by none other than Mother Nature, by her own brilliance and patient resolve over countless centuries. Diamonds, like every other thing in nature come to us in various forms, colours, shapes and sizes. Over the years there quantity has dwindled making them extremely valuable and sought after. Broadly, there are coloured diamonds as well as the transparent diamonds, which many of us consider as “white.”

The value and worth of a diamond is defined by how difficult it is to find, in other words rarity, and the craftsmanship involved in cutting and sizing it. The 4C’s which are clarity, colour, cut and carat weight are the determining factors in estimating the worth of the final finished piece! This can vary much with different types of diamonds. Let us see what makes colorless diamonds different from colored ones.

Colorless Diamonds

These are what many mistake as the white diamond. Such diamonds are in fact colourless the way how glass or water is. The “whiteness” or transparency of the diamond is graded on a standard colour grading scale from D to Z. White diamonds  with a standard colour grading nearing Z have a strong yellowish hue like tint. These are not considered to be rare or as valuable as white diamonds. Then again colour is merely one factor. If coloured diamonds are perfectly cut then its value skyrockets. The Diamonds with a D standard colour grading however are extremely rare and highly valued.

Colored Diamonds: A Rainbow Of Coloured Gems

Coloured diamonds come in range of colours of various shades. From the highly coveted rare pink, red, green and blue diamonds to the more common sighted light brown and yellow variants. The highly rare blue, green and pink diamond ring variants such as the Daria-i-Noor and Hope diamond are prized even beyond the colourless standard colour grade D diamonds, owing to its rarity.

Coloured diamonds are formed as a result of a combination of minerals under immense conditions of heat and pressure, because of which it showcases varying degrees of intensity or “hue”. The various hues in order of increasing intensity include:

• Faint
• Very Light
• Light
• Fancy Light
• Fancy
• Fancy Intense
• Fancy Dark
• Fancy Deep
• Fancy Vivid

The faint hue is that of low colour intensity whereas the fancy vivid is of astounding or strong hue.

Which Should You Choose?

Well it all depends on personal taste at the end of the day. Dependent on market availability, and on-going fashion trends, the demand for one particular type of diamond could sway either way!