The Night Sky team want to ensure you choose the perfect diamond for you. To keep things simple, there are essentially four things to focus on when looking at a diamond: colour, clarity, cut and carat. Known as the 4 Cs, these diamond characteristics will help you understand exactly what you’re paying for.
The 4 Cs
Colour
The colour grading of a diamond is, in fact, focussed on its lack of colour. White diamonds, with little or no colour, are graded as higher quality. Yellow is the most common diamond colour, so the diamond colour scale is based on how much yellow appears in a diamond when observed facedown through the pavilion on a white colour card using daylight equivalent fluorescent light. Our diamonds are colour graded using the GIA Grading Scale and compared using master stones, which display a variety of colours. The GIA diamond colour grades range from D (colourless) to Z (light yellow or brown).
Clarity
Most diamonds have tiny flaws. Diamonds that have very few imperfections, or none at all, receive higher clarity grades as they are rarer. Clarity is a description of a diamond’s internal purity. There are five factors that determine clarity: size, number, position, nature and colour. Our diamonds are graded and plotted using 10X magnification. There are eleven diamond clarity grades ranging from most flawed to flawless:
- I1, I2, I3 Included Diamonds
- SI1, SI2 Slightly Included (SI) Diamonds
- VS1, VS2 Very Slightly Included (VS) Diamonds
- VVS1, VVS2 Very, Very Slightly Included (VVS) Diamonds
- Internally Flawless (IF) Diamonds
- Flawless (FL) Diamonds
Cut
We cut Diamonds in a number of different ways. The sharper the cut, the more brilliant the sparkle. An excellent or ideal diamond cut will allow as much light as possible, so to reflect through the diamond. You cannot cut it too deep or too shallow. Cut grades include poor/fair, good, very good and ideal.
Carat
We measure Diamonds by weight rather than size. Carat (Ct), is the international unit of weight we use to measure the size of a gemstone, such as a diamond. A carat is equal to 0.2 grams and fractions of a carat are points or fractions. So a 100-point diamond weighs 1 carat. The heavier the diamond, the great the carat and the higher the value.
Now it’s time to choose the perfect colour, clarity, cut and carat for you. Shop our diamonds now.
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