The Four Cs of a Diamond: Diamond Color

When talking about a diamond’s color, we’re referring to its natural body color – not the spectrum of light it reflects. Fancy color diamonds aside, the best, most beautiful color for a diamond is no color at all. That said, most diamonds naturally exhibit slight hints of yellow, brown, or gray. This coloring comes from natural trace elements of nitrogen that were present when the diamond formed in the Earth. The less color a diamond exhibits, the more rare it is and the higher its value.

Diamonds with less color also allow more light to pass through them, giving them better brilliance and fire. Funnily enough, a diamond with less color will demonstrate more colorful fire.

Diamond color is graded using the international gemological color scale. This scale starts off with the highest rating of D for colorless diamonds and works its way down the alphabet to grade stones with traces of very faint or light yellowish or brownish color. Most KAY diamonds are graded "near colorless" - between G and J on the color scale. At a J grade and beyond, the human eye can start to detect a yellow tint.

You can read about the various color grades in the chart below: