Color Treated Diamonds
Many people are starting to favor the fancy, vivid colored
diamond gem stones over the traditional transparent, or white, diamond. Some
diamonds are found in their natural colors when they are mined, others become
colored by gemologists and jewelers during a treatment process. In order to make them more affordable to the
average consumer, companies have begun color treating diamonds of lower grades
in order to take a less desirable yellow or brownish tinted diamond and make it
into a beautiful, brightly colored diamond.
Colored diamonds can be treated by a process called
irradiation, which uses a high heat system to alter the color of a
diamond. Other diamonds are treated by
painting.
Fancy Colored Diamonds
While many diamonds are inspected and valued based on their
colorless qualities, there are people who prefer the fancy colored diamonds
that come in vivid hues of greens, yellows, reds, pinks and all the different
colors in between.
Some colored diamonds are that way naturally. If a diamond has nitrogen in it, it often has
a yellow tint to the stone. If the
gemstone has been effected by radiation, the gem may turn green.
Other colored diamonds have been treated to obtain their
color, and this allows people with lower budgets to purchase the fancy colored
diamonds. Gemologists have found ways to
alter the colors of diamonds to get any shade or hue desired.
The grading process for colored diamonds is slightly
different than that of the transparent diamond.
First, a colored diamond is graded based on the primary hue, the blue or
pink or red color that makes up the majority of the diamonds color. Second, they are graded based on the
intensity of that color. A very intense,
naturally colored diamond is more rare than a less intense diamond, and
therefore more expensive. A treated
diamond will cost less than a naturally colored diamond in most instances.
Synthetic Diamonds
Most diamonds are found and mined by miners, but more
recently, scientists have come up with ways to create synthetic diamonds. While a synthetic diamond is still a “real
diamond”, they are created within a laboratory instead of by nature in a mine.
Colored Diamond Names
Because fancy colored diamonds come in so many different
shades, it can sometimes be difficult to interpret the name of the diamonds
color. Often, you'll find two colors
labeling the shade of a diamond, such as greenish blue. Each name has a primary color description,
and some have a secondary color description.
If a diamond is called “blue diamond”, you can tell it will be a blue
shaded diamond gemstone. If the diamond
is called “greenish blue”, you may wonder what that means. Is the diamond blue, or is it green? The
color that is described with the “ish” at the end is considered the secondary
color, and the other color, in this case blue, becomes the primary color. So a greenish blue diamond is mostly blue,
with specks of green seen throughout the stone.
If you come upon a diamond labeled “brown red”, then the diamond will
have equal amounts of both colors seen through the stone.
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