Diamond Guide
Carat measures a diamond's weight, not its size. Understanding that distinction is how you get the most visible stone for your budget.
Weight climbs faster than width. Doubling the carat does not come close to doubling how large the diamond looks on the hand.
0.25 ct
4.1 mm
0.50 ct
5.2 mm
0.75 ct
5.9 mm
1.00 ct
6.5 mm
1.50 ct
7.4 mm
2.00 ct
8.2 mm
Eight times the weight of a 0.25 ct, but only twice the width
A 0.95 ct looks identical to a 1.00 ct and can cost meaningfully less.
Oval, marquise and pear carry their weight wide, so they read larger.
A well-cut 0.90 ct can face up bigger and brighter than a dull 1.00 ct.
A halo or a slim band makes the same centre stone look noticeably larger.
A carat is simply a unit of weight. One carat is 0.2 grams, about the same as a small paperclip. It is also split into 100 points, so a 0.50 carat diamond and a 50-point diamond are the same stone.
Here is the part that surprises almost everyone. Carat measures how heavy a diamond is, not how big it looks. A 2.00 carat weighs eight times what a 0.25 carat weighs, but on the hand it is only about twice as wide. Weight grows in three dimensions while your eye only sees one: the flat surface facing up.
That gap between weight and visible size is where you either lose money or save it. Three things decide which:
Buy just under the round numbers. Prices jump hard at 1.00, 1.50 and 2.00 carats, purely because those are the figures people ask for by name. A 0.95 carat sits a fraction under the line and looks identical on the hand for noticeably less.
A better cut looks bigger. A stone cut too deep hides its weight down in the point, where nobody will ever see it. You pay for every gram either way, so a well-cut 0.90 carat can genuinely face up larger and brighter than a poorly cut 1.00 carat. This is exactly why we treat cut as the first decision rather than the last.
Shape changes everything. Elongated cuts like oval, marquise and pear spread their weight across the finger instead of burying it in depth, so they read noticeably larger than a round brilliant of the same carat.
Put simply: chase the diamond that looks biggest and brightest, not the one with the largest number on the paperwork. Tell us the look you are after and the budget you have in mind, and we will find the stone that gets you the most visible diamond for it.
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