Planning on buying diamond jewelry soon? How do you choose the right one? Do you know the four Cs of buying a diamond - cut, color, clarity, and carat? Likewise, how do you pick a diamond of the right shape and with the right certification? If you don’t know where to start, here are the answers to all the above questions.

Cut

A diamond cut is the most important quality to look out for, for it determines how brilliantly the stone sparkles. As a general rule, the best-cut stones have a maximum of 58 angled surfaces and, therefore, reflect light the most. Known as excellent cuts, they are also the most expensive. At the opposite end are the poor cuts while the fair, good and very good cuts fall in between.

Color

The color of a diamond comes next in importance, and it refers to a stone’s color or the lack of it. As yellow is the most common color found in diamonds, the color scale ranges from colorless to light yellow. For easier identification, it has an alphabetical equivalent running from D-Z. For instance, colorless stones start at D, near colorless at G, faint yellow at J, very light yellow at N, and light yellow at W. However, diamonds come in other colors, though rarely.

Carat

Carat refers not the size of a diamond as most people imagine but to its weight. In short, 5 carats weigh a gram and 142, an ounce. This means that a small high-grade stone has fewer carats than a large low-grade one, yet it costs more. However, when two stones have the same quality, the one with more carats costs more.

Clarity

Clarity refers to the presence or absence of flaws either on the surface or on the inside of a diamond. Internal imperfections, known as inclusions, are the more important of the two. And although every diamond has them, stones considered flawless have imperfections invisible to the eye even under 10x magnification.

These are the FL-grade and the IF-grade diamonds. At the other end of the scale, you have included or I-grade diamonds with imperfections visible to the naked eye. Stones with very slight and slight inclusions fall in between and come under the V-grade and S-grades respectively.

Shape

After the four Cs, consider the shape of a diamond of which the most common are circular and oval. However, about ten more shapes exist. Of these, the cushion, asscher, emerald, brilliant, baguette, and princess are almost square, but with rounded edges. Then, you have the trillion, pear, marquise, and heart, which have at least one pointed edge.

Certification

After making all the above considerations, look at a stone’s grading certification, which confirms the claims made by a jeweler. Among other things, the certificate lists the overall quality as well as the color, clarity, carat, and origin of a diamond.

Conclusion

Buying the right diamond jewelry has never been easy. After all, many cuts, shapes, and sizes exist. But if you know what to look for, you’ll only be limited by your budget.