Sharing gifts with your loved ones is usually common especially during special occasions like anniversaries, Christmas Day, Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. A gift is a concrete expression of an intangible value such as the feeling of appreciation, and love. Your gift could be a box of chocolates, flowers, or the expensive diamond jewelry. Whatever gifts you may share; there is usually an enormous emotional and sometimes, monetary investment in it.

When you choose to give diamond jewelry such as a pair of earrings, a necklace, or a ring, your special someone would surely appreciate your gesture. Diamond jewelry or diamonds are said to be a woman’s best friend. The wearing of diamond jewelry has always been a part of history as diamond jewelry was made to adorn the human body. To some, the very thought of diamond jewelry brings to mind the glamour of royalty.

The sparkling diamonds that you see in diamond jewelry have undergone a long process before they find their way to the buyer. Diamonds originate from carbon deep inside the bowels of the earth. To turn into a diamond, carbon undergoes crystallization as it is subjected to extreme pressures and tremendous heat. After extraction from the earth, diamonds are cleaned, polished, refined and cut to produce a brilliant luster. The diamonds would then be sold either as loose or as diamond jewelry.

Many outstanding variety, innovations, and designs of diamond jewelry have been introduced in recent years. To show off the beauty of the stone in diamond jewelry, jewelers would set the precious stone into a precious metal like gold and platinum. To determine the approximate value of diamond jewelry, and to distinguish them from fake diamond jewelry, you must familiarize yourself with the four characteristics of diamonds before buying a piece of diamond jewelry. These are known as the four Cs in the industry: carat, clarity, color, and cut.

Carat

The unit of weight used for diamonds is called carat. There are 100 points in a carat, so a 99-point diamond utilized in your diamond jewelry has a virtual weight of one carat. Note, however, that although your diamond jewelry that has two diamonds of equal weight, it does not follow that these stones are of equal value. Color, clarity, and cut of the stone in your diamond jewelry are also taken into consideration.

Clarity

The clarity of a diamond used in diamond jewelry is influenced by the presence or absence of blemishes or inclusions, visible both to the naked eye and under magnification. The top-clarity grade of diamond jewelry is abbreviated as FL, or flawless. If you happen to buy blemished diamond jewelry, it means that there are imperfections found on the external part of the diamond. If your diamond jewelry has inclusions, there are imperfections or impurities located inside the stone.

Color

Grading a cut stone in diamond jewelry means to determine the degree of deviation from the whitest color possible. Because true colorless diamonds are very rare, they are the most valuable whether they are loose or made into diamond jewelry. If you are not familiar with diamond jewelry, it would be easy to conclude that all diamonds mounted on diamond jewelry are colorless. However, some diamond jewelry use stones that have traces of gray, brown, and yellow color.

Cut

Skilled craftsmen cut the diamond stone in your diamond jewelry according to a mathematical formula. The craftsman makes the cuts so that the facets, all 58 of them, will reflect the maximum amount of light. When the diamonds in your diamond jewelry are masterfully cut, the angles and facets produce brilliance, or reflection that largely affects the cost of diamond jewelry.