Fashion & Jewellery 25th February 2021

Which is the Rarest Diamond Colour for an Engagement Ring?

Coloured diamonds have something of a tarnished reputation much of the time, with occasional forays into the popular set. This is because colour can somewhat affect the sparkle of the diamond, and also because it indicates a contaminant in the carbon that makes the stone. But which colour is the rarest when it comes to engagement rings?

Blue Skies and Sunshine

Blue is one of the more popular colour for engagement rings, and blue diamonds are quite rare. This makes them fairly pricy, which actually works in their favor as it makes those who want to make an investment out of their engagement ring all the keener to purchase a blue diamond ring.

blue opal

Yellow There!

Yellow diamonds, especially bright deep yellow stones, are enjoying a brief moment of popularity, mainly inspired by some Instagram-savvy celebrities who have shown off their Intense Vivid Fancy Yellow diamond rings, thereby encouraging their followers to follow suit in choosing the unusual shade for their own nuptials. The craze for yellow diamonds almost certainly will not last – fashions come and go in diamonds just as in everything else, and a period of embracing vivid and fancy stones is almost always followed by another in which only the best clarity and colour stones are highly rated. If you want to see the diamond colour scale, you will see that the clearest diamonds are rated D and E, while fancies are almost always clustered under Y and Z, even though discernible colour starts at around I or J.

colour chart

Brown Diamonds

Usually marketed as chocolate, cognac, and champagne diamonds, brown diamonds are the most common of the fancy shades, and sadly, they are the least popular too. This is because the name 'brown' is seen as being unattractive. However, the truth is that brown diamonds can look wonderful – think of brandy or cola with a light shining through it! – and they still have the unique light reflecting properties that have made diamonds so very popular for years. When you think that only a few diamonds are good enough quality to be commercially sold, and of that small number, only about ten percent are coloured, it really does not make sense to be dismissive of any fancy stone!

Red and Pink Blush

From the faintest hint of baby pink all the way through to deep blood red, pink and red diamonds are rare, beautiful and highly valued. They are fairly popular as engagement ring diamonds, but they are physically rare – which also makes them expensive.

Green Eyes

green diamond

Green diamonds are created by a unique contamination process that happens deep under the earth's crust, and usually just contaminates the top layer of a diamond. This is why, often, green diamonds are subject to an emerald cut – this style suits wide flat stones. However, occasionally, green diamonds are sometimes found in sufficient size to be cut into a round brilliant design, and these would be ideal as engagement ring stones – except for the unlucky connotations of the color green! And it is this superstition – that green is a rather sinister color and should be avoided during a wedding, whether as the color of the bridesmaids' dresses, one of the theme colors or even as the engagement ring – that has seen green become the rarest color diamond for an engagement ring.