Colored Diamonds
When it’s time to buy colored diamond, be it an engagement ring, earrings, bracelet, necklace or even men’s jewelry, much thought and effort are put into the endeavor. The reason is that diamonds are an expensive matter and one must take different factors into account, aside from the initial challenging budgetary decision: the color, cut, clarity and carat weight, also known as the 4 c’s, are all things that affect the price of the diamond. For many, the color of the diamond plays the most important role in their search, often because they are uninterested in standard colorless diamond, but, rather, in colored diamond.
Fancy colored diamonds come in a variety of colors, including steel gray, black, yellow, blue, pink, red, purple, green and all intermediate shades. Natural colored diamonds get their colors in different ways. For example, green diamonds become green as a result of radiation during the diamond’s creation, while yellow diamonds are produced as a result of trace nitrogen. However, not all colored diamonds are natural, and some result from different color manipulations.
Oftentimes, gemologists take undesirable diamonds and alter their color. In this way, for example irradiation is used followed by a high-heat treatment in order to turn sallow diamonds into much more vivid and rich colored diamonds.
It comes as no surprise that many celebrities choose colored diamonds over standard ones. For one, colored diamonds are, in many people’s opinion, more beautiful and regal (of course many would disagree with this statement). Additionally,Natural colored diamonds are much more rare than colorless, and Hollywood represents the trendy, expensive and inaccessible. And colored diamonds are all of the above.
Because natural colored diamonds are so rare and can be rather exorbitant, diamond treatments (namely, color manipulations) are very common. If you are no diamond-expert, and colored diamond has always been your dream, do not be disappointed if you quickly realize that you budget would not allow you to go for natural colored diamond. However, don’t be dissuaded; although artificial, these color manipulations still make truly beautiful colored diamonds more accessible and possible for more of us to own. Whenever you shop around for colored diamond, always assume that any affordable fancy color diamond you may eye has been treated in some way to enhance its color and other characteristics. If you do wish to procure a natural colored diamond, you should ask for a lab certificate to verify the authenticity of any color diamond marketed as natural.
