jewelry blog

Black Diamonds: Important things to know about them

June 3, 2022

11613

Black diamonds are fun coloured diamonds of the same category as blue, yellow and pink diamonds.

When diamonds are produced naturally within the earth over time, they’re exposed to minerals or elements that affect their colour.

For instance, when a diamond reacts with boron while in formation, it turns blue. A diamond can gain a black colouration with large quantities of black mineral inclusions such as pyrite,

graphite or hematite. Based on the concentration of a stunning black diamond’s mineral inclusions, it can appear grey, black, brown or dark green.

Black Diamonds: Important things to know about them

Three Kind of Black Diamonds

Natural Black Diamonds are genuinely a bit different from other coloured diamonds. The “dry” definition of a black diamond is a stained form of polycrystalline diamond made up of graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon.

You don’t understand. But in other words, while “regular” natural coloured diamonds have their colour due to impurities that are connected to them at the formation stage (for instance, boron creates blue diamonds).

Black diamonds are the same as white diamonds, which feature a very high level of inclusions, a band of graphite within them to the extent that they look black.

Treated black diamonds are regular white diamonds that are typical of meagre value due to the high level of inclusions in them.

As they have many inclusions like white diamonds, the only way they are used is as industry-grade diamonds, yet, with the help from treatments like heat or irradiation.

In one way, a preferable name for such diamonds (which has been used many times) is “colourless treated black diamonds” or just “black coloured diamonds”.

As for the production of this kind of black diamond, “useless” white diamonds are employed. These are the most affordable kind of black diamonds.

Lab-grown / Man-made / Simulant / synthetic black diamonds aren’t diamonds that exist within the ordinary sense of the word.

While they are just the same, I think that people who handle these kinds of diamonds would not accept my viewpoint (and will be very angry with me).

All of these are usually known as faux but sincere, and there is a big difference between them.

Lab-grown diamonds are genuine, in one-way high-tech companies, and even though treated diamonds are more affordable than regular diamonds,

lab-grown diamonds are not that cheap. The idea behind it is that so much has been spent on research, men power, heavy and expensive machinery.

The Four C’s in Black Diamonds

As they have unique qualities, black diamonds cannot be graded according to the 4Cs (diamond cut, carat, clarity and colour) just as colourless diamonds can.

Black diamonds can receive cut grades, and they do have carat weights. But black diamonds cannot get cut rates or standard colour.

Black diamonds cannot be graded according to the colourless diamond colour scale as they exist far outside it.

They can’t be graded according to the colourless diamond clarity scale since they’re mainly very highly included.

Thus, you won’t find black diamonds with the same grading report that verified colourless diamonds should come with.

Instead, black diamonds may be available with a different kind of report that details things like colour (black diamonds are assigned a single colour grade

Pretty black) and if the diamond is natural or not. The GIA’s version of this report is known as a Colored Diamond Identification & Origin Report.

CARAT

Carat is the same for every colour of diamonds with a bit of difference: black diamonds are relatively less dense.

A one-carat black diamond can appear physically smaller than a white diamond. Due to this, we advise you buy a ring that has black and white diamonds to provide a “fuller” look.

COLOUR

Colour is the second factor, and black gemstones are the same here also. White diamonds are set on a scale between D-Z,

with the grades D-F having no colour and G-J being almost so. Yet, the GIA and other well-known labs use it for coloured diamonds.

As a rule of thumb, black diamonds are “fancy” when their colour is designated as either heat-treated or natural.

Typically, a black diamond ought to have brilliant colour distribution: in other words, it should have no white specks in it or a significant amount of visual distraction.

CUT

Like every diamond, black stones have to be cut before setting them into black diamond pieces. The rule is, pretty black stones can be subjected to any cut other diamonds can be cut into, but the most famous choices are a princess and round brilliant.

Brilliant cuts are cuts that are meant to produce the best shine in diamonds. Even as the sparkle factor varies for carbonados, the cutter still wants to gain as much light as it can bounce off the top facets.

As the brilliant round cut is the favourite choice for black diamond wedding rings, square brilliants are virtually almost famous.

Other brilliant cuts include pear, heart, oval and marquise. Meanwhile, step cuts were fashioned to reveal the clarity of a stone.

They have long lines and fewer facets. Possibly the most popular step cut is known as the emerald cut, as it was initially invented to portray the colour of emeralds.

CLARITY

Sadly, most black diamonds can’t be easily graded using gemological laboratories due to their clarity. Black Diamonds

If the black colour is well-outlined, but the gemologist can look through the depths of the stone to the extent that can evaluate the facets, silver

then such stone is requisite for a coloured diamond grading report. Carbonados that can go for this report are very rare and costly.

Due to these difficulties, the jewellery trade has formulated another scale for black diamonds: the choicest ones are graded AAA while the lowest quality is I1.

Black diamond treatment

Just like other coloured gemstones, black diamonds are usually heat and pressure treated to improve their colour. Black Diamonds

Even though the purpose of treatment in most gems is to improve the clarity, when it comes to black diamonds, the stone is treated to make it of lesser quality, white diamonds black.There are three ways of doing this.

-Radiation treatment affects the inclusions and restructures the atom such that the stone becomes black.

-High temperature, high pressure (HTHP) plays the same role, only that in this place, graphite is forged within the crystal.

-Lastly, chemical vapour deposition (CVD) for the diamond to form in another way.