Diamonds
The Four Cs
The four grades that set a diamond’s price — and the ones you can actually see.
Almost every jeweler prints the Four Cs. Far fewer will tell you which of them changes how a stone looks across a dinner table, and which mostly changes what you pay. Below is the honest version. Whatever grades exist for a diamond are published on its product page, so you never have to take our word for any of it.
C
Cut
The one that matters most, and the one glossed over most often. Cut is not the shape — it is the precision of the angles, and it decides how much light comes back out of the stone rather than leaking through the bottom. A superbly cut half carat will out-sparkle a lazy three-quarter carat in any room you walk into. Where a cut grade is published for a stone, we list it.
C
Color
Graded from D, meaning colorless, down to Z, meaning faintly yellow. The scale is real, but two neighboring grades are close to indistinguishable once a stone is set — particularly in yellow or rose gold, which lends warmth to whatever sits in it. Six grades apart is another matter. We publish the grade so you can decide how far down the scale your money is better spent.
C
Clarity
A record of the tiny inclusions almost every natural diamond carries, from Flawless down to Included. Much of what separates the upper grades cannot be seen without ten-times magnification. What you actually want is a stone that reads clean to the naked eye; beyond that you are largely paying for a line on a report. Where a clarity grade is published, it is on the product page.
C
Carat
Weight, not size. One carat is 0.2 grams, and two stones of equal weight can look quite different depending on how they are cut — a deep stone hides its weight below the setting. Where a weight is given as a fraction, the FTC requires it to be read as a range rather than an exact figure. We publish the range beside the weight on the product page and in full in our FAQ.
A three-stone ring — the center and side stones can carry different grades, so check each on the product page.
Natural and Lab-Grown
The difference is where the stone formed, not what it is. A lab-grown diamond has the same carbon structure, the same hardness and the same behavior in light as a mined one; the two cannot be told apart by eye, only by instrument. What differs is price and rarity. We sell both, and we say which is which in the title, the description and the specification table — never in the small print. Lab-grown solitaires come with an IGI certificate.
What We Would Tell a Friend
With a fixed budget, spend it on cut first, then on color and clarity that look clean to your own eye, and put whatever is left into weight. That order is not the one the trade sells hardest, because cut is the least glamorous line on a grading report. It is still the one you will notice every single day.
Put it to work
Now choose your diamond.
Every diamond listing states whether the stone is natural or lab-grown, with its grades where the stone has them.
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Questions? Email support@sanajewels.com. US Customer Support, Monday–Friday.