The Four Characteristics That Define Every Diamond
Every diamond is evaluated on four fundamental characteristics - Cut, Colour, Clarity, and Carat. Together, these determine a diamond's beauty, rarity, and value. Understanding each one helps you choose a stone that matches your priorities and budget.
Cut
Cut refers to how well a diamond's facets interact with light. It is the most important of the 4 C's because it has the greatest impact on a diamond's visual beauty. A well-cut diamond returns light efficiently, producing brilliance (white light reflected back to the eye), fire (coloured light dispersed into spectral colours), and scintillation (the pattern of light and dark areas created by reflections within the diamond).
Cut is graded from Excellent to Poor. We recommend prioritising cut grade above all other factors. Read our full Cut Guide.
Colour
For white (colourless) diamonds, colour refers to the absence of colour. The grading scale runs from D (completely colourless) to Z (light yellow or brown). The differences between adjacent grades are subtle and often invisible to the untrained eye, but they affect value significantly.
Fancy-coloured diamonds (yellow, pink, blue, green, champagne, black) are graded on a separate scale that evaluates hue, saturation, and tone. Read our full Colour Guide.
Clarity
Clarity measures the presence of internal inclusions and surface blemishes. The scale runs from FL (Flawless) to I3 (Included). At CRTD Diamonds, we only offer VS1 and above - meaning every stone is eye-clean with no visible inclusions without magnification.
Our clarity range: VS1, VVS2, VVS1, IF, FL. Read our full Clarity Guide.
Carat
Carat is a measure of weight, not size. One carat equals 0.2 grams. While carat weight is the most intuitive of the 4 C's, it is important to understand that two diamonds of equal carat weight can appear very different in size depending on their cut and shape.
Our standard range: 1.0ct to 5.0ct in half-carat increments. Read our full Carat Guide.
Balancing the 4 C's
The art of choosing a diamond lies in balancing these four factors against your budget and preferences. Our recommendation: prioritise Cut first (it makes the biggest visual difference), then choose a Clarity and Colour grade that meets your eye-clean standard, and finally select the largest Carat weight your budget allows.