A diamond is regarded as the king of all gemstones gaining its name from the Greek adamas, the unconquerable. For many it is the ultimate symbol of love and one of the most important purchases you'll ever make after your home. Choosing the right diamond can give a great investment on your money aswell as your heart. Buying a diamond can be a daunting prospect with the mystical aura of the Four Cs causing some confusion. It is important to have a good understanding of the basic measurements of quality used for grading diamonds so you can make an informed choice. This handy diamond buyers guide will give you the tools to select your dream gemstone.

The Four Cs

All the diamonds that De Beers makes available on the diamond market are classified into one of 5,000 different standards of quality.  Over centuries experts have devised a series of criteria for judging the aspects of beauty in a gemstone called the Four Cs - colour, cut, clarity and carat weight. Although weight really has nothing to do with quality, it is a useful tool for the consumer to know the size of diamond they are buying - yes the old adage bigger is better can be true of diamonds too. Once you have grasped the knowledge of the four Cs, you can use them to analyze and discuss the beauty of a gemstone.

Diamond colour - diamonds are found in all colours, mostly yellowish. They are evaluated together with purely colourless diamonds which are considered the best as they give off the most intense natural white sparkle. The grading scale goes from D - exceptional white to Z - yellow.

For diamond rings we recommend G colour grading. This gives the rare white sparkle at a sensible price. An unskilled eye would struggle to differentiate between two adjacent grades of colour but a qualified and experienced gemmologist, assisted by a pure white light and GIA master “comparison stones” (stones graded and recorded at the Gemological Institute of America) can accurately classify diamonds according to the recognised colour grading scales.In fact, you would be hard pressed to see the difference between a G colour graded diamond and a D colour graded diamond but your wallet most certainly would!

Of course some diamonds have colour and are highly desireable. Fancy coloured diamonds are rare and attractive and command high prices.  They exist in various hues of yellow, brown, orange, pink, red, green and blue. For most people, the white colourless diamond is the traditional stone to symbolise love and committment.

 Diamond Cut - Of all the different cuts for a diamond, the most popular is the round brilliant. In a diamond which has no color, it is brilliance, or life in the stone, which is a function of cut and the most importance of all the Four Cs. Proper cutting and polishing are required to achieve a diamonds full potential. It is the proportions width to depth not number or placement of facets that will dictate the amount of brilliance and dispersion a diamond will produce which it turn gives it that sparkle and fire. Traditionally, a round brilliant has 58 facets. The facets are aligned at precise angles in relation to each other to maximise the light reflected through the diamond. The quality of these cuts will significantly affect the look and value of your diamond. It is a very complicated process and requires great skill by a master cutter.

The scale for diamond cuts goes from Excellent, Very good, good, medium to poor. Excellent and Very good represents exceptional brilliance with very few and only minor outer marks and excellent to very good proportions. Diamonds with this grade are highly desireable. Good represents good brilliance with some outer marks and some deviations in proportion. Always go for the diamond with a very good or good cut if you want maximum sparkle and brilliance in your stone.

Diamond Clarity - It is rare to find a diamond without any imperfections. Most diamonds contain tiny inclusions that can be seen with the use of a microscope or jewellers loupe. Inclusions can range from small dark or light solid fragments, crystals, fractures or feathers. They sound horrible but in reality most are invisible to the naked eye. Only diamonds rated on the lowest clarity scale - I1, I2 or I3 will have inclusions visible to the naked eye. We always recommend a VS clarity rating for our HeBe diamonds as these contain very small inclusions only visible by use of a 10x magnification loupe.

As with colour and indeed diamond cut, clarity does affect the value of your diamond. The scale goes from IF - internally flawless which is the absolute best through to visible inclusions at I3. Clarity really is a matter of personal preference. Internally flawless diamonds do command high prices and should only be considered if you want to have the absolute best. For the most part, a VS diamond will be every bit as good and nobody will ever be able to tell the difference just by looking at it. 

Diamond Carat - diamond weight or size is stated in carats, a term of measurement derived from the romantic scale of comparison using the seeds of the carob tree which are uniformed and consistent in weight. Nowadays, precision balances are used and a carat has been standardized as equivalent to one fifth of a gram. The term carat is still used by the jewellery trade and it is important to understand when selecting your diamond. Diamonds are often referred to as points. You might have heard the term 100 point diamond or a seventy seven pointer. One carat is divided into 100 points, so a diamond weighing half a carat can also be described as weighing 50 points and so on.

Diamonds over 1 carat are particularly rare.  Less than 5% of gem quality diamonds achieve this magic weight once they are cut and polished, making them more desirable and inevitably much more expensive. The visible difference between an 0.95 carat diamond and a 1.00 carat diamond would be hard to tell but the difference in price might suprise you. The choice is of course down to personal preference and affordability but a 1 carat diamond is very big to wear and look at. Remember that you will be wearing a diamond ring for a very long time and while a big stone might seem romantic, in the long run a smaller stone will be altogether more practical for daily life.

How do you spot a fake diamond?

The simple answer most of the time is you don't. We always recommend you buy diamonds from a reputable source online and on the high streets. Some diamond fakes like Synthetic Moissanite diamonds are so good even jewellers with standard thermal conduction testers cannot detect them. Before buying a diamond ring online ask yourself a few simple questions. Do they have a real shop? Are they a member of a recognised jewellery body. How long have they been trading. Does the website look professional. Are they Visa and Mastercard 3D Security approved. Do they use secure payment providers. Do they offer any shopping guarantee. A good internet retailer will have all of these.

The GIA have an excellent interactive How to Buy a Diamond guide on their website. It's well worth a go and quite informative. 

We hope this diamond guide has given you the confidence and knowledge to make buying a diamond as pleasurable as possible. Our exclusive HeBe Diamond Rings come with either a GIA or Anchor Cert certification so you can be sure of the quality of diamond you are buying. We select diamonds that are GVS with good or very good cut as standard. Of course, we can select higher grade diamonds on request. All our stones are from Conflict Free sources.

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