Diamond Guide
Colour is the second most important of the 4 C's. Understanding the grading scale is how you find the best looking diamond for your budget.
Diamond colour measures the absence of colour. The scale runs from D, completely colourless, through to Z, where a warm tint is obvious to the eye.
D–F
Colourless
G–J
Near Colourless
K–M
Faint
N–R
Very Light
S–Z
Light
Truly colourless and the rarest. Best reserved for platinum or white gold.
Appears colourless once set, especially G to I. The value sweet spot and our usual recommendation.
Faint warmth, more obvious in larger stones. Pairs well with yellow or rose gold.
Clearly tinted face up. Not something we recommend for a centre stone.
Obvious yellow. A budget or fancy-colour category rather than an engagement ring stone.
Colour is graded with the stone loose, upside down, against a white tray, under controlled lighting. That is nothing like how anyone will ever actually see the ring.
Face up, in a setting, on a hand, the differences compress dramatically. Two grades apart is genuinely difficult to call without the stones sitting side by side.
The metal matters more than the grade. A white metal setting makes any warmth more obvious, so aim higher on colour there. Yellow and rose gold reflect into the stone anyway, so a J or K looks entirely at home and saves you a great deal.
This is the single easiest place to free up budget and move it somewhere it actually shows: into cut, or into carat.
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