The world of jewelry is vast, and the best way to equip yourself with the baseline knowledge before buying anything is to learn some of the most important terms in jewelry. I am here to guide you through them, simply, and quickly
The 4 C’s
Cut, Clarity, Color, and Carat (not Karat) are the 4 C’s of diamonds. Cut is probably the first thing you notice about a diamond, followed by it’s size (carat). Unless they’re diamond-savvy buyers, many people overlook the Clarity and Color aspects. Personally, I love fancy cut diamonds (anything but round) and my favorite is the Asscher Cut or square emerald cut even though it tends to look slightly smaller than its round brilliant equivalent in carat weight, mainly because it holds most of its weight below the surface in the depth of its pavilion, but I find it an extremely elegant cut hardly matched by anything else.
Clarity refers to how clear (or included) the diamond is. Natural diamonds are part of nature and have taken millions of years to form, they sometimes include part of the environment where they grew into their composition, which are referred to as inclusions. Below is an example of GIA’s clarity scale to illustrate the different clarity grades:
Color refers to the degree of hue and saturation of color inside a diamond. Colorless diamonds are often desired more and are often sold for higher value, unless it is a fancy colored diamond, the diamond has higher value the higher the intensity of the color. Below is a chart illustrating the color scale. Personally, I love working with G color diamonds, because they are colorless, but are not SO colorless that they make everything worn with it and around it appear off. They are great at blending with other jewels and are just simply beautiful.
Carat (not Karat) refers to the carat weight of the stone, and Karat with a K refers to the karat weight of the gold. A common mistake I see too often is the use of these interchangeably. The higher the carat weight of the diamond, the higher the price. What you should know is that there is a substantial jump in price each time a carat number rounds off. For example, a 2.00 carat diamonds and a 1.9 carat may look very similar in size, but that 0.1 change in weight will result in a jump in its price.
Below is a video we made about the diamonds we like to use for our jewelry. I believe diamonds are timeless and are forever, and I love working with certified diamonds, they retain value and can easily be passed on from one generation to the other – truly forever.
Only the Best Diamonds from Salama Khalfan Jewellery on Vimeo.