Diamond Clarity

What are the different types of inclusion?

Different flaws were formed in different ways and some have a larger effect on the stone than others. Here’s four of the most popular, seen through a high-powered microscope. You are very unlikely to be able to see these on a diamond unless you go for one of the lowest grades of clarity. You don’t need to know this information, but it’s interesting to see.

Feathers

Cavity

Needles

Clouds

Images: GIA

As with each of the 4Cs, diamond clarity is graded on a scale, with the grading recorded on every diamond’s certificate. This allows buyers to know exactly what they’re getting as they know that the stone has already been assessed and certified by an expert, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of the buying process.

The most common way of grading clarity is using the scale developed by The Gemological Institute of America (GIA). It rates stones from flawless all the way through to ‘imperfect’. One thing to note is how many of the clarity grades require a microscope to see the inclusions:

Microscope needed to see flaws

Microscope needed to see flaws

Microscope needed to see flaws

Microscope needed to see flaws

Microscope needed to see flaws

May be able to see flaws with the naked eye

Flaws definitely visible with the naked eye

The tool below shows what each of the different clarity grades actually looks like:

Despite its limited effect on the actual appearance on a diamond, unless you go for a diamond at the bottom of the grading scale, clarity has a huge effect on price because of rarity.

Diamonds with no clarity characteristics are rare. Diamonds take about 300 million years to grow, give or take a few, and in this time it’s very likely that they would have encountered other minerals that would have been introduced and created imperfections. Also, the larger a diamond is, the longer it would have taken to grow, so the more likely it was that imperfections and flaws would be formed.

SI1 and SI2 stones (which may be eye-clean but you need to inspect the individual stone) are over 50% less expensive. If you find an eye-clean stone at SI1, you’ll be able to pay for a good chunk of your honeymoon with the difference in price, while the stone will look exactly the same as a Flawless stone unless it’s examined under a microscope (which not too many people carry around in their pocket to inspect diamonds with..)

Check out the two stones below – one is an IF and one is an SI1 stone, both magnified at 20x. However, even at this super zoomed-in magnification the SI1 looks eye-clean, so will definitely appear completely perfect once mounted in a ring. Is it worth paying the extra premium for the Internally Flawless stone? That’s up to you, but I’d say no..

The larger a stone is, the more likely it is that it has inclusions.

It’s a result of diamonds being naturally occurring. Larger rough diamonds took longer to grow than smaller ones, so are more likely to have run into the conditions that produce flaws. They’re more likely to have encountered other minerals that would creep in and show up as inclusions, or be subject of cooling and then reheating which can affect the way the diamond crystal forms.

0.5 carat diamond with SI1 clarity and no visible inclusions

2 carat diamond with SI1 clarity and visible inclusions

Buying diamonds online is definitely the best way to get access to the widest choice and the best prices. No bricks and mortar retailer can match the selection and competitiveness of the diamonds found through my recommended retailers.

However, there are certain instances where certain online retailers are better than others, and that’s mainly when looking at diamonds which are on the lower clarity grades.

Choosing borderline clarity diamonds

As discussed in the previous section, different sizes of diamonds, and indeed different shapes, will show different levels of flaws and imperfections at the same quality grade. However, even diamonds that score exactly the same on every category of the 4Cs can appear very different.

The below two stones are both:

• Carat:
• Colour: G
• Cut: Excellent
• Clarity: SI1

If the inclusion is in the ‘table’ of the stone (the flat bit at the top), it’s likely to be more visible than if it was close to the edge. This is particularly important if you’re looking at diamond shapes with a large table e.g. an emerald cut.

Despite the two stones being graded at the same level of clarity, the whopping great run of flaws down the middle of the left stone are much more obvious than any inclusions on the stone on the right, mainly because of where they’re located.

The answer

If you are planning on choosing a diamond which is on the border of either being eye-clean or with inclusions that are easily visible, then you need to make sure that you can inspect the individual stone that you are considering.

The way to do this is to use an online retailer that offers high-quality and zoomed in images of each individual stone, so you can inspect the merchandise and then make your own decision.

James Allen in particular offers extremely high quality imagery of every single diamond they sell.

If you are planning on choosing a stone that is on the borderline clarity-wise (ie. Slightly Included 1 or below, or VS2 for larger stones) then these two retailers are the only two retailers that I would recommend choosing your stone from.

Clarity is often confused as the defining factor in a stone’s ‘quality’.

When people first learn a little bit about the 4Cs, it’s not uncommon for them to assume that if a stone has no or very few imperfections, it must be high quality, while one with imperfections must be low.

This is a very simplistic view, and clarity is just one of the 4 Cs that need to be considered.

When looking at diamonds, most people are concerned with how well it sparkles. It’s the most obvious attribute of a diamond and a good quality stone can catch your eye from across the room.

So, if sparkle is your yardstick for quality then clarity doesn’t have too much affect on the stone’s performance unless there is a large grouping of flaws that affects how much light can actually pass through.

Cut is a much more important factor in how well a diamond performs ‘optically’ ie. how much light passes through it and is reflected to your eyes, making it sparkle.

Does clarity matter then?

How much diamond clarity matters is up to you and the relative balance of the 4Cs that you can squeeze into your budget.

When I first started looking at diamonds and learnt a little about clarity and imperfections, I was keen to go for the highest clarity I could. I wanted my stone to be really top quality.

This is a trait I know a lot of guys share with me – we want to know that we have the best of everything.

Like a lot of guys I know, I obsess over details when I’m doing research before buying something. I want to know that my mountain bike has the most suspension travel in its class, my phone screen has the most pixels and my food mixer has enough power to blend an iPad (it can and there’s a video on YouTube to prove it). We like to go for the ‘best of breed’ of everything.

Really though, these requirements are excessive. Although I have six inches of suspension travel on my bike, I’m lame enough at mountain biking that four would do. It doesn’t help me stay on my bike any more than my friends. My phone has a 2k screen which means that I can watch HD movies on the toilet, but it’s way beyond what I need for Facebook and grainy YouTube videos of squirrels on waterskis. And though it’s useful to know that I can destroy all the household electronics I please, all I really use the blender for is making short work of the odd kumquat.

With each of these, I could have saved cash by settling for the ‘best of need’, rather than ‘best of breed’.

When you’re buying a diamond engagement ring, you need to find the balance of the 4Cs that is right for you and your budget.

Clarity is just one of the factors that you need to consider, but you should think about whether a rock with a higher clarity rating is worth paying significantly more for than a stone with a lower rating that will look the same to the naked eye.

For me, the sweet spot is VS2 diamonds – they strike the right balance between being eye-clean and being affordable.

If you’re on a budget then SI1 and SI2 stones can be eye-clean, but you need to make sure that you can see a zoomed-in image of them to make sure that no flaws are visible.

Ultimately you want to get the most impressive ring you can, and if quality to people who are looking at the ring is defined as how much it sparkles, then cut is a much bigger contributor to this than clarity and you should focus your budget there.