A Buyers Guide To Colored Diamonds

Treating Diamond To Enhance Color

Lots of people are beginning to favor the fancy, intense colored diamond gem stones over the conventional clear, or white-colored, diamonds. Quite a few gemstones are uncovered in their organic colorings when they are mined, many others become shaded by gemologists and jewelers during a treatment procedure. In order to make sure they are less expensive to the average buyer, specialists have begun treating colored stones of lesser grades in order to take a less desirable yellow or brownish colored diamond and turn it into a beautiful, brightly colored gemstone.

Colored diamonds can usually be treated by a process known as irradiation, which uses a very high heat program to enhance the color of a diamond. Some other jewels can be treated by painting them.

Fancy Colored Diamonds

Even though diamonds are inspected and valued according to their colorless qualities, there are still quite a few people who opt for the fancy colored diamonds which come in dramatic shades of greens, yellow, red, pinks and all the variants of colorings in between.

Some colored diamonds are that way naturally. The presence of nitrogen in the formation will often provide a strong yellow color. If the gemstone has been effected by radiation, the gem may turn green.

Other colored diamonds which have been treated to obtain their color allows people with lower budgets to purchase the fancy colored diamonds. Gemologists have found ways to alter the colors of diamonds to get any shade or hue desired.Grading colored gems is more complex than grading the clear variety due to the stacking of the color intensity.. First of all, a colored diamond is graded based on the primary hue, the blue or pink or red color that makes up the majority of the diamonds color. Secondly, they are graded based on the intensity of that color. A very intense, naturally colored diamond is more rare than a less intense diamond, and therefore more expensive. A treated diamond will cost less than a naturally colored diamond in most instances.

Making Synthetic Diamonds

In general, most diamonds are found in the earth, in mines and extracted by miners , but more recently, scientists have come up with ways to create synthetic diamonds. A synthetic version is still a real diamond, just created in a lab instead of the earth, and, of course, are much less valuable.

Colored Diamond Names

Because fancy colored diamonds come in many shades, it can sometimes be hard to interpret the name of the diamonds color. Often, you’ll find two colors labeling the shade of a diamond, such as greenish blue. Each name has a primary color description, and some have a secondary color description. If another color is mentioned with an ‘ish’, that would be the secondary color. If you come upon a diamond labeled “brown red”, then the diamond will have equal amounts of both colors seen through the stone.

Recently It has become a very popular choice to buy yellow diamond engagement rings, from the range of canary yellow diamonds and other fancy yellow diamonds.