By Elizabeth Henderson

Colored diamonds amount to less than one carat in 10,000 carats of all mined diamonds. They are very rare. However, because they exhibit the wonderful color saturation and hues of less expensive colored gemstones, but still have the brilliance of diamonds, they are like two gemstones in one. All of this makes them much sought after.

To meet demand for what it a very rare gemstone, gemologists developed techniques where by high pressures and temperatures are applied to clean but poor color diamonds, to enhance their natural hues in exactly the same way that Mother Nature first produced the nature fancy colored diamonds. These practice is so common that unless the colored diamond has a prohibitively high price tag (and I mean really high), the gemstone will have been treated to bring out the natural hues to perfection. This does not mean that the diamond is a fake. The treatment process mimics Nature’s own and is considered to be totally permanent. So even if the jewelry piece needs repairing at some point in the future, the color of the diamond will remain.

If the diamond has been mined, it is a real diamond. Period.

However, there are laboratory created diamonds, which have been developed to mimic colored fancy diamonds. Because these diamonds have not been mined, they are not genuine diamonds. Make sure you ask about the origin of the diamond and ask for a certificate to validate the gemstone.

Like white diamonds, all fancy diamonds are graded according to the 4Cs. These are carat, cut, color and clarity. Cut and carat weight classifications are the same as for white gemstones, but there are slightly different considerations for clarity and color.

The clarity of colored diamonds is generally lower than that of white diamonds. In fact, translucent to transparent stones are very rare. However, the clarity does not matter as much for colored diamonds, if the color saturation is good. If you are looking for a fancy diamond, included stones are often perfectly fine.

Unlike white diamonds, colored gemstones are graded in terms of how much color they do have, rather than how much they do NOT have. For fancies, the deeper the hue, the better the gemstone. And if the hue is deep enough, internal flaws are harder or impossible to see, so the clarity of the gemstone becomes less important.