Yellow Diamond Engagement Rings are Surprisingly Popular

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Yellow diamonds are currently one of the most popular choices for engagement rings. Fancy yellow-colored diamonds range from greenish-yellow to orangy yellow. Fueling this trend are a number of celebrities who have proudly flaunted their stunning yellow diamond engagement rings. These include Carrie Underwood, Iggy Azalea, Adele, Paris Hilton, Kelly Clarkson, and more. You can often see Jennifer Lopez wearing a spectacular Canary Yellow Diamond ring as well. If you are interested in buying yellow diamonds this blog post is for you.

Meaning Behind Yellow Diamonds

Diamonds are known to symbolize love, devotion, and commitment. Yellow diamonds represent those sentiments plus more. The color yellow stands for wisdom, intellect, and knowledge. It’s also a very cheerful uplifting color that inspires optimism. A yellow diamond engagement ring represents the beginning of a life together and “living happily ever after.”

Color Intensity of Yellow Diamonds

The color grading scale of white diamonds runs from D to Z, from a colorless diamond to one that has a noticeable hint of yellow or brown. If the grading scale continued way past Z until it got to a rich vibrant yellow, you’d reach what’s called a Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond. Yellow diamonds are totally suffused with yellow and have absolutely no traces of white.

GIA Color Scale for Grading Yellow Diamonds

· Faint

· Very Light

· Light

· Fancy Light

· Fancy

· Fancy Intense

· Fancy Vivid, Fancy Deep or Fancy Dark

Evaluating the color of any diamond can be daunting, and especially so with Fancy Color Diamonds. With these diamonds, it’s not simply a matter of a distinct point along a scale, as each color grade represents its own range. For example, a Fancy Yellow Diamond might be a tiny smidgeon over the line from Fancy Light. Another Fancy Yellow Diamond might miss reaching the Fancy Intense grade by a tiny margin.

This is why we strongly recommend you buy from a reputable vendor like Leibish & Co. This company provides shoppers with images of the highest quality. When you can clearly see the diamonds that you are considering it is much easier to select which one is the most beautiful and valuable.

Insider Tip: No matter which color diamond you’re looking for, yellow or colorless, it’s important to compare prices online. You will find that online diamond retailers offer prices up to 40% less than local jewelry stores. And many provide customers with free shipping, even for returns. If you are looking for Fancy Colored Diamonds, we would recommend Leibish. But if you’ve got your heart set on a colorless diamond, you should turn to James Allen.

The 4Cs and How They Affect the Prices of Yellow Diamonds

Color determines how yellow your diamond is

Evaluating the quality and determining the prices of Fancy Colored Diamonds is far more difficult than with colorless white diamonds. There are so many variations in color, all with different levels of intensity that impact the price, which is why determining value and price is so difficult. For example, a tiny hint of brown in a yellow diamond dramatically reduces its value, but the same in an orange or green diamond will increase it.

When grading all colored diamonds, the color is evaluated first. But when grading white diamonds, many experts believe that clarity is just as important as color when determining value and price. But with colored diamonds, the value and pricing are determined just by its color.

The cut is the most important of the 4Cs

When diamond cutters cut colorless white diamonds, their goal is for the diamond to reflect the most light. This requires them to prioritize proportion and symmetry over everything else. This is why round cut diamonds turn out to have the most brilliant sparkle and why they’re the most popular.

For Fancy Colored Diamonds, the stone is cut in a way that most enhances the color, so proportion, symmetry, and brilliance take a back seat. So, Fancy Colored Diamonds are not graded on cut.

You will find very few round cut yellow diamonds. Fancy Colored Diamonds typically display a more vivid color when cut into other shapes, like a cushion, emerald, oval, pear or radiant.

Fun Fact: The largest and most valuable yellow diamond in the world is the Graff Vivid Yellow Diamond, which sold in 2014 for $16.3 million. How large is it? 190 carats.

Clarity indicates if there are major inclusions

For colorless white diamonds, the emphasis is on buying one that’s eye-clean. But if you’re buying a Fancy Colored Diamond, clarity is not a priority because the flaws can be hidden by the color.

So, the intensity of the color is the priority. Take a look at the image above and you will see that the lower clarity graded Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond is far more valuable than the less vivid Fancy Light Yellow Diamond with a clarity grade of flawless.

Rarity & Price of Yellow Diamonds

Canary Yellow Diamonds are fairly common and because they’re more common than other Fancy Colored Diamonds, they are more affordable.

A Fancy Colored Diamond in a light yellow will be priced very similarly to a colorless white diamond with an I Color grade. For example, this 1.01-carat Radiant Cut Fancy Light Yellow Diamond with a VS2 clarity is priced at $4,150, whereas this 1.03-carat Radiant Cut I Color White Diamond with VS2 clarity has a very similar price of $4,100.

Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamonds of extremely intense color can be very expensive. If you have an eye clean one with decent color it will be priced about the same as a Flawless White Diamond in D Color shaped the same. In deciding between the two, it would be a matter of personal preference.

Settings for Yellow Diamond Engagement Rings

When selecting the engagement ring setting for a yellow diamond you have a chance to make the diamond’s color appear more vivid or intense. Typically, by setting a yellow diamond in yellow gold, the color will look deeper. But if you put a yellow diamond in a white gold setting, the diamond can look lighter. To save on the cost of a yellow diamond, you may want to look for a stone that is one color grade lower in intensity and put it in a yellow gold setting to enhance the color.

Ring Settings that Match a Yellow Diamond

Halo Setting for the ones who prefer vintage

By putting a yellow diamond in a halo setting you can make the center diamond in your engagement ring look larger, particularly if there is a double layer of surrounding stones.

Example: Cushion Cut Fancy Intense Yellow Diamond in Double Halo Ring

Pavé Setting for the ones who believe in symbols

A pave diamond setting features embedded side stones, which makes the ring sparkle more. You can choose side stones of the same yellow color as the center stone or colorless white diamonds.

Example: Cushion Cut Fancy Intense Yellow Diamond in Pavé Setting with Side Stones

Side Stone Setting for sparkle lovers

To embellish your yellow diamond engagement ring, you can select a side stone setting. You can have round brilliant cut, triangle-shaped or any other shaped side stones that appeal to you.

Where to Shop Online for Fancy Yellow Diamonds

It is important that you only buy diamonds that have been certified by a recognized lab, like GIA or AGS. Before you actually buy, make sure you have an eye-clean diamond that meets all your requirements. Choose a well-established diamond retailer that allows you to see HD photos and videos of the stones. You need to closely inspect each diamond so that you know what you’re getting.

As mentioned before, Leibish & Co. is where we recommend you go online to purchase Fancy Colored Diamonds as they are the industry leader for this type of diamond. You will find they have a large inventory of high-quality jewelry, including colored diamonds with prices ranging from several hundred dollars into the millions. They provide excellent customer service and you can trust their policies.

You may also want to check out James Allen, especially if you’re looking for more affordable colored diamonds. They have advanced Diamond Display Technology, which is almost as good as seeing the stones in person.

How Fluorescence Affects Appearance & Value

Most people shopping for diamonds understand the importance of the 4Cs. But there are other important features that affect a diamond’s overall value, such as fluorescence.

When a diamond is forming deep within the earth, it can absorb elements like aluminum and boron, which end up giving the diamond a fluorescent glow. The fluorescence may give off a colored tint, like white, blue or yellow, often not seen by the naked eye.

The fluorescence on a yellow diamond might make the stone look milky or have a brownish tint, if it can be seen at all. Before buying, discuss this with the jeweler. You need to clearly understand how the fluorescence on your yellow diamond will affect its appearance and value.

Where Yellow Diamonds are Mined

All naturally formed diamonds originate way below the surface of the earth. They are ultimately brought up to a level where they can be mined through volcanic eruptions. The elements that combine to make up a diamond’s color can be found anywhere. However, this occurrence happens more frequently in places where these specific elements are more prevalent.

For example, in Western Australia, the Ellendale mine is known for its output of a huge amount of yellow diamonds. But in recent years the mine’s production has been in decline. However, there are many other locations around the world that currently produce yellow diamonds.

Yellow diamonds are extremely rare. For every 1000 white diamonds found, one yellow diamond is discovered. Only 0.0001% of all diamonds mined turn out to be Fancy Colored Diamonds. And yellow diamonds are the ones most commonly found in this category. The mines best known for producing these diamonds are located in Angola, Australia, Borneo, Brazil, Canada, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Russia, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.

Lab-Grown Yellow Diamonds

If you would like to get the most for your money, you might want to consider buying a lab-grown yellow diamond. They look exactly the same because their atomic makeup is identical.

Lab-grown diamonds can be priced up to 30% less than mined diamonds. There’s also another benefit in that these diamonds are definitely not blood diamonds. By buying a lab-created diamond, you know for sure that the stone is 100% conflict-free.

Also, you should have no problem finding an online diamond vendor with lab-grown diamonds in a wide variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.