Black Diamond Engagement Rings

Black diamond engagement rings are exotic, striking, and unusual. For us in North America white is always the first color that comes to mind when we think about weddings and engagements—white diamonds, white wedding dresses, white table linens.... You get the idea.

So what's with the recent trend in black diamond rings and engagement rings?

Although white and white diamonds are the norm for both nuptials and engagement rings there has been a recent surge of couples who are thinking outside the box and wanting something unique and dramatic to symbolize their eternal love.

The true beauty of a black diamond is that its color is pure and almost opaque. Unlike the other fancy colored diamonds the black diamond appears solid in color with less light able to pass through it.

Given the opacity, black diamond engagement rings have a completely different look because the crystal pure and intense coloring sets it apart from all the other fancy colored stones or the traditional white colorless diamond. They actually have a different crystalline structure than all the other diamonds which is what seemingly makes them black and absorb light instead of refracting it.

Treated Black Diamond Engagement Rings

Natural fancy black diamonds (meaning those that come out of the earth that way) are very rare and expensive therefore most of the black diamonds that you find on the market today are treated black diamonds and not natural ones.

The term used for this is, heated in the rough, which basically means that they take a natural white diamond and apply pressure, intense heat and other procedures to change it to black. Needless to say that the treated black diamonds are much less expensive than the natural ones although the stone itself is still a genuine natural diamond.

Another reason for their lower cost is that the natural diamonds they use to begin the process have a poor quality diamond color grade (one of the 4cs). This means that they can use white diamonds with a color grade of N or lower (which are much less expensive) to make the black diamonds. And since these diamonds will end up black the initial color grade doesn't matter anymore.

Man-Made or Lab Grown Black Diamonds

These are also sometimes referred to as synthetic black diamonds. These are still real diamonds but instead of coming out of the earth they are grown in a lab that simulates the conditions that forms a diamond over hundreds and thousands of years. The interesting part about these types of man-made black diamonds is that they have the exact same scientific composition as a natural one so they look just like the real thing and basically are the real thing they just started out life in a lab instead of in their natural habitat. Dare we say it? Not unlike test-tube babies. ;-)

Black Diamond Engagement Ring Settings

A black diamond ring can be incredibly beautiful, especially when the black diamonds are paired with white diamonds. Black diamonds are most commonly set in white gold (or even platinum), especially when it comes to engagement rings, because the 'coolness' of white metal works better with the intense black of the stone.

Because a black diamond doesn't have the same refraction of light as all the other diamonds there are very few setting constraints.

With white diamonds and the other translucent fancy diamonds, the passage of light within the setting is important however since black diamonds are so opaque, they can be set in ways that the others shouldn't be and still retain their individual personality and characteristics.

Although unusual, black diamond rings are beautiful and perfect for some couples. Some hesitate about buying one (like one of our readers Julia who asked us if she should go with her heart and look at black diamond rings - we responded to her along with some other folks).

Black diamond engagement rings are exotic, dramatic and make a bold statement about the two people whose union they represent. And to those couples, we have two things to say.... Bring on the black, and... black is the new white!