Trend Alert: Grey Diamonds?

You’ve heard of white diamonds, and yellow diamonds, and maybe even pink diamonds. But what the hell are grey diamonds, and why are they suddenly a thing?

Grey diamonds are the next big trend in fancy jewellery and engagement rings. Many brides are looking for something a little less ubiquitous than the standard white diamond solitaire engagement ring, and coloured stones fit the bill perfectly. However, coloured gemstones are fast becoming almost as popular as white diamonds. So what’s a girl to do? Go grey!

To understand grey diamonds, we first need to explain the colour range of these blingy little rocks. Colour is one of the famous ‘4Cs’ of diamonds. The other 3Cs are carat, cut and clarity, but that’s a whole other story. A diamond’s colour is measured on a scale from D to Z, with D being completely colourless (i.e. the ideal, sparkly white diamonds that are most common in engagement rings) and Z having a noticeable yellow tint.

That’s white diamonds. Any other shade, yellow included, is known as a ‘fancy colour’ diamond. So obviously a grey diamond must be somewhere in the middle of the D – Z scale, right? Since it’s not quite colourless but not a ‘fancy’ diamond?

Wrong. Confused yet?

Grey diamonds aren’t just white diamonds with less of a sparkle. True grey diamonds in fact have a completely different quality and a very obvious grey tone that can range from steel grey to graphite grey, and often has metallic blue-ish undertones to boot. The colour comes from a high concentration of hydrogen, much higher than a diamond from the D – Z scale.

Grey diamonds are categorised into the following ‘official’ shades; light grey, fancy light grey, fancy grey, fancy dark grey, and fancy deep grey. The GIA lists the most common undertones as yellowish, greenish, bluish and violet. So basically there is huge variation, as much as with yellow or other fancy colour diamonds.

And guess what? Grey diamonds are extremely hard to come by, and when you find one it often has impurities. For that reason they’re not exactly a mainstream choice in the jewellery industry. However, since they supply vs. demand ratio is pretty much matched, that means that despite their rarity, they’re still relatively affordable. So if you’re looking for an engagement ring style that nobody else will have, a grey diamond could be the perfect choice!