 Colour
 The
majority of diamonds mined are tinted yellow, brown, and black. Most of these diamonds
have industrial uses like drill bits, saw blades, etc. However, as prices of diamonds
rise, the shift to using diamonds with some body colour in jewellery increases.
It is now very common to find slightly brown (called "Top Light Browns")
or slightly yellow tinted diamonds in today's jewellery.
The whiter the diamond is, the more valuable the stone is. The rarest of all white
diamond colours is “white” (or colourless). The best colour in a white
diamond is no colour.
Colour is graded under controlled lighting conditions – what looks colourless
or white to the untrained eye, could in fact be a very light yellow tinted diamond.
In fact experiments have proven that over 90% of untrained people are unable to
tell the difference between D and H diamond under controlled testing condition.
Diamonds are graded for colour unset and face down, against a white background.
Graders are evaluating the actual body tone (hue) of the stone against a set of
master stones graded by the Gemological Institute of America. The Gemological Institute
of America (G.I.A.) grades colours alphabetically from D (totally colourless) to
Z (yellow).
For a diamond to be considered "colourless," the G.I.A. requires that
it be a D, E, or F. However, the D-Z scale is continuous, so the difference between
an F and G is very small. Most diamonds used for jewellery purposes fall into the
Near Colourless Category.
* Pass your mouse over the image and move the scale left to right.
Perhaps the most important factor to consider when selecting colour is the type
of setting you plan on using. If you plan on mounting the stone in a platinum or
white gold setting, consider a diamond in the D-G range. Yellow gold will be much
more forgiving to a less than colourless stone, but regardless of the setting, the
diamond will start to appear yellow if the colour grade is lower than about J.
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