THE 4CS OF DIAMONDS
You know our love for diamonds — we wanted to walk you through how they are graded! All our natural diamonds are sourced to order and certified by independent laboratories, which issue GIA (Gemological Institute of America) or HRD (Diamond High Council) certificates. They come exclusively from countries that are signatories of the Kimberley Process.
CARAT
This is the unit measuring a diamond's weight. The term is said to originate from the seed of a tree called the carob, or « Kuara », remarkable for keeping the same weight over time. The carat entered the metric system in 1906 at the Congress of Weights and Measures in Paris, where it was defined that 1 carat would equal 0.20 grams. Worth knowing: the largest diamonds are also the rarest, and as you'll have guessed, their price rises exponentially!
COLOUR
Note that a diamond is also assessed according to colour criteria. The white diamond colour scale includes 23 shades, graded from D to Z (from the whitest to the least white). At Douze Paris, we use diamonds of colour G and H.
CLARITY
Clarity is about imperfection, and every diamond has some. These « flaws » are called inclusions. In most cases, they are invisible to the naked eye and do not affect the diamond's brilliance. At Douze Paris, we use diamonds of VS clarity. Richard T. Liddicoat and his colleagues established the diamond grading system and the clarity scale of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in 1953. This scale lists the different grading categories and clarity grades of diamonds, the main ones being:
- FL: Flawless: perfectly pure under magnification.
- IF: Internally Flawless: pure under magnification.
- VVS 1-2: Very Very Small inclusions.
- VS 1-2: Very Small inclusions.
- S 1-2: Small inclusions.
- I 1-2-3: Included: visible inclusions.
CUT
The quality of the diamond's cut is the only one of the 4 criteria that depends on human work. The cut reveals the stone's sparkle and brilliance. For example, the brilliant (or round) cut has 57 facets that maximise the refraction of light. Cuts have evolved over time, for purely aesthetic reasons or through technical improvements. The rose cut is the perfect illustration: developed in the 16th century, its number of facets has grown over the years. Long overlooked, it is gradually making a comeback!
MATCHING WEDDING BANDS
