Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, so let’s get the basics down in diamond selection. These days’ lots of couples select the engagement ring together, which certainly makes the process easier. However, if you’re a traditional girl like me then you want the surprise of the proposal, your fiancé to somehow know the type of ring you want, and also magically be able to afford it, perfect right? For those of us who don’t live in a perfect world here’s what you need to know and somehow subliminally pass on to whoever is doing the proposing (hey it's 2008, okay? anyone can do the proposing)
The 4 C’s
Carat
Carat refers to the weight of a diamond, the higher the carats, the more expensive. A carat weighs about 0.2 grams. The unit measure of a carat is a point, so a 100 points make up one carat, don’t worry that’s the only math you need to know. As a rough estimation an 0.5 carat diamond is about the size of a small pea and will cost you about N180,000.
Cut
The cut refers to the shape of a diamond and is quite important. The way a diamond is cut affects how much it sparkles. Yep, so you can have a large piece of bling which doesn’t shine, what fun is that? Interesting cuts include, the princess, emerald, marquis and oval cuts.
Clarity
The clarity is the primary factor that affects a diamonds price. The less imperfections it has, the more expensive. Clarity is graded on a jeweler’s loupe (10x magnification), and the scale of measurement goes like this
- FL Flawless
- IF Internally Flawless
- VVS1, VVS2 Very Very Slight Inclusion
- VS1, VS2 Very Slight Inclusion
- SI1 - SI3 Slight Inclusion
- I1 - I3 Inclusion
Colour
Generally the more colourless a diamond the more expensive it is, there are exceptions though. There are other types of diamonds, blue, red, green and canary yellow diamonds that are extremely expensive. With colour there is also a scale of measurement:
- DEF - Colourless
- GHIJ - Near colourless
- KLM - Faint yellow
- NOPQR - Very light yellow
- STUVWXYZ - Light yellow
- Fancy light, fancy, fancy internal - Yellow
So there you have it, diamond selection in a nutshell. It is also very important to make sure the diamond in question has a cert which is a written document that lists the 4 c’s.
By A. Ejums