Diamond Color

Diamonds come in a variety of colors. Most commercially available diamonds are classified by color, or to be exact, the lack of color. The most costly are colorless diamonds (due to their unsurpassable ability to absorb all rays of light equally) and fancy colored diamonds (owing to their curiosity and rareness).

Colored diamonds have a particular color because they contain trace elements. These elements were created in diamonds naturally during their formation in earth. The color of a diamond depends on the quantity and nature of the elements and how they originated. The color of a diamond can vary from almost colorless to very light yellow or brown. There are also "fancy diamonds" colored pink, blue, green, yellow, brown and even black. However, most commercially available diamonds range in color from colorless to pale yellowish.

Color is graded on a letter scale from D to Z. D-graded diamond is a colorless one. Diamonds represented in the D-F range are the rarest and, therefore, most valuable. Diamonds in the G-K range often seem colorless to untrained eye and are also of great value.

Fancy color diamonds are not graded according to this convention.