The 4Cs of diamonds, in plain English

Surat cuts and polishes a very large share of the world's diamonds, and our family has spent its working life around them. Yet the language used to describe diamonds can feel deliberately confusing. It need not be. Four characteristics, known as the 4Cs, describe almost everything that matters.

1. Cut: where the sparkle comes from

Cut is not the shape of the stone (round, oval, cushion) but how well its facets have been proportioned and polished. A well-cut diamond returns light to your eye as brightness, fire and sparkle. A poorly cut one, however large, looks dull or glassy.

For round brilliant diamonds, grading reports give an overall cut grade. If you prioritise one C, make it this one. An excellent cut makes a diamond look bigger, brighter and whiter than its other grades suggest.

2. Colour: from icy to warm

Most white diamonds are graded on a scale from D (completely colourless) through the alphabet towards Z (light yellow or brown).

• D–F: colourless, the rarest and most expensive
• G–H: near colourless; in a ring it is very hard to see any warmth
• I–J: near colourless with a faint warmth that can look lovely in yellow or rose gold

Many of our designs use G colour, which looks white to almost every eye at a meaningful saving over D–F. Setting matters too: a slightly warmer diamond set in yellow gold will look whiter than the same stone set in white gold.

3. Clarity: the diamond's fingerprint

Almost every diamond contains tiny natural features, called inclusions. Clarity grades describe how visible they are under 10x magnification:

• FL / IF: flawless or internally flawless, exceptionally rare
• VVS1 / VVS2: very, very slightly included, very difficult to see even under magnification
• VS1 / VS2: very slightly included, invisible to the naked eye in almost all cases
• SI1 / SI2: slightly included; many SI1 stones are still clean to the eye

The phrase that matters is eye clean: whether you can see anything without magnification at a normal viewing distance. VS2 and good SI1 stones usually are, which is why you will often see those grades on our product pages.

4. Carat: weight, not size

A carat is a unit of weight equal to 0.2 grams. Larger diamonds are rarer, so price rises faster than weight: a single 1.00 ct diamond costs considerably more than two 0.50 ct diamonds of the same quality.

There are also price steps at popular weights such as 0.50 ct and 1.00 ct. A diamond of 0.90 ct can look almost identical on the hand to a 1.00 ct, at a noticeably lower price.

The fifth C: certificate

An independent grading report confirms all of the above. Our certified diamonds come with reports from IGI or GIA, two of the best-known laboratories. The report number is usually laser-inscribed on the girdle of the stone, so the diamond and its paperwork can be matched. Each Shifora product page lists the stone details, and the report travels with your piece.

Where to spend, where to save

If you have a fixed budget, our advice from the bench is:

1. Prioritise cut. It does the most for beauty.
2. Choose colour by setting. G–H in white metals, H–J in yellow or rose gold.
3. Buy eye clean, not flawless. VS2 or a good SI1 is the sweet spot.
4. Consider just under the round numbers. 0.90 ct instead of 1.00 ct, for example.

Metal changes the price too

On Shifora, the stones in a design are priced separately from the metal, so choosing platinum or 18KT gold changes only the metal line in the price breakup, not the diamonds. That makes it easy to compare settings fairly.

If you would like help choosing a stone, or to see a diamond under magnification on a video call, write to us at info@shiforaa.com.

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