Four distinguishing characteristics of diamonds--color, cut, clarity, and caret.

Color--When you are talking about color in a diamond, you really mean colorless.  The more valuable diamond is a colorless one. When you are shopping for a diamond, it is best to buy a diamond graded DEF which is colorless. Fancy colored diamonds do exist and they too are very valuable.

Cut—The cut gives a diamond its brilliance.  A diamond cutter had to polish and cuts the facets into the stone to make it sparkle.  The purpose of the cut is to maximize a diamond’s radiant quality by allowing light to be bounded the stone making it sparkle.

The most popular cuts include the round brilliant cut, pear, emerald, marquise, oval, and baguette. The round brilliant cut is the most popular.

Clarity--refers to the fact that a stone should not have blemishes within it.  Sometimes a diamond might have blemishes or clouding that may not even be visible with the naked eye. A diamond should be flawless because flaws reduce its value.

Carat--refers to the diamonds weight. Jewels measure diamonds by the number of points it has with one carat equaling 100 points and equals .2 grams or .007 ounce.

A diamond's size does not always dictate its value. Two seemingly identical 1-carat diamonds may be light years apart in price because one has a better cut, clarity or color than the other.

An Expert’s Opinion

Although it is a subjective decision, most experts would advise you to sacrifice a step or two in color in favor of better clarity, or fewer internal flaws. The next advice would be to select a jeweler of very high reputation to assist you in buying a quality stone.