Fancy Color Diamonds
As if diamonds weren’t perfect enough, colored diamonds have a flash of dazzling brilliance and captivating color. Color diamonds vary in all shades, tones, and hue intensities. Diamonds are made up of carbon, this element can form crystal-like structures called a diamond lattice. Assuming all parameters are perfect, a pure carbon diamond lattice would form and the diamond would be completely clear and colorless.
On the other hand, during a diamond’s formation, the parameters often change. This can look like the entrapment of non-carbon atoms, changes in pressure, and temperature. And this is how color diamonds are formed or better known as “fancy colored diamonds.” This is one of nature's most beautiful
and rare occurrences.
Yellow Diamonds
Of the color diamonds, yellow is the most common and can be found at a jewelry retailer. These diamonds owe their color to nitrogen, primarily, and cape defects. Nitrogen is the most common impurity found in natural diamonds. While yellow diamonds are still extremely rare, they’re more abundant than other colored diamonds, making their prices more affordable.
Did you know? The term “cape” was originally used to identify yellow stones from the former Cape Province in South Africa. Today it refers to diamonds with color saturations typically in the light yellow range. The cape defects are also responsible for the slight amount of color in most diamonds.
Yellow diamonds are often bezel set in yellow gold, even if the setting itself is platinum or white gold. This intensifies the color and emphasizes the difference between white and yellow. For the same reason, fancy yellow diamonds are accented with white diamonds, this emphasizes and intensifies the yellow diamond.
Shop Fancy Yellow Diamonds
Other Fancy Color Diamonds
Blue diamonds are among the rarest diamonds, they form at extreme depths compared to other colored diamonds. Their color comes from the presence of boron. This element is found in the floors of ancient oceans carried deep into the Earth’s mantle by the movement of tectonic plates. Click the image to shop this Fancy Blue Diamond.
Pink diamonds are formed from intense heat and great pressure. Pink diamonds are created from distortion in their crystal structure, not from trace elements, such as nitrogen, which causes yellow color in diamonds or boron, which causes blue.
Black diamonds bold color is caused by graphite inclusions and random clustering throughout the lattice. It’s believed that some black diamonds fell to the earth as meteorites, neat right?
Salt & Pepper Diamonds are diamonds with a mix of black and white inclusions, creating a silky gray and speckled look. Inclusions are small imperfections inside of a diamond. This can include black, white, or other colors, and vary in shapes and sizes. Click the image to shop this Salt and Pepper ring.
Fancy Color Diamonds at Skeie's
For all color diamonds, the concentration of each element or physical change will vary in the intensity of the color. For example, low concentrations will produce a light shade of a color diamond, whereas higher concentrations can increase the overall absorption and result in an increase in the amount of light and color!
Here at Skeie's we source a variety of diamonds including Fancy Color Diamonds. We encourage you come by our store and shop our current selection of Fancy Color Diamonds. You may also sit with our experienced gemologists to learn more about our experience with colored diamonds, our diamond origins and how it will best fit your style! For more follow us on Instagram or email us with questions!
This information was sourced from https://www.gia.edu
