The 4 C’s refer to diamond characteristics:
Cut, Color, Clarity, and Carat Weight.
A diamond’s cut refers to the symmetry of the stones facets, and the ability to refract light which effects a diamonds overall sparkle. You grade a diamond’s cut by the following scale: Ideal, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor.
A diamond’s color is graded on the D-Z color scale. Diamond color is all about what you can’t see. Diamonds are valued by how closely they approach colorlessness (the less color), the higher their value. The exception to this is fancy color diamonds, such as pinks and blues, which lie outside this color range.
Fancy Cut Diamonds
A fancy cut diamond refers to any other shape of diamond.
The clarity of a diamond is how “clear” the stone is. The fewer visible natural characteristics a diamond has, the higher its clarity, rarity, and value is. The clarity scale contains 11 grades that consist of: Flawless (FL), Internally Flawless (IF), Very Very Slightly Included (VVS1 and VVS2), Very Slightly Included (VS1 and VS2), Slightly Included (SI1 and SI2), and Included (I1 and I2). In determining a clarity grade the following are taken into consideration: size, nature, position, color, and/or relief.
Carats describe the weight and/or size of a diamond. Diamonds are measured in carat weight, a part of the metric system. A carat is divided into 100 points. For example, a 50 point diamond weight 0.50 carats. Diamonds can be expressed as carats or decimals.