The Essential Four Cs - Color

Diamonds are valued by how closely they approach colorlessness – the less color, the higher the value. Most diamonds found in jewelry stores run from colorless to near-colorless with slight hints of yellow or brown. The only exceptions are the fancy-color diamonds that lie outside of this range. Click here to learn more about how colored diamonds are graded.

GIA’s diamond color-grading scale is the industry’s most widely accepted grading system. The scale begins with the letter D, representing colorless, and continues, with increasing presence of color, to the letter Z. Diamonds are color-graded by comparing them to stones of known color under controlled lighting and precise viewing conditions.

Many of these color distinctions are so subtle that they are invisible to the untrained eye. But these slight color differences make a very big difference in diamond quality and price.