What To Know About IF Clarity Diamonds

What Is IF Clarity Grade?

The GIA clarity grades are used to rate how “included” a diamond is, a measure of how many imperfections exist inside the diamond and blemishes on the surface of the stone. The second highest clarity grade is IF which stands for Internally Flawless. Like flawless diamonds, internally flawless diamonds have no inclusions inside them. However, internally flawless diamonds will have very subtle blemishes on their surface. These blemishes are so small that only a skilled grader using a 10x magnifying lens will be able to see them. Internally flawless diamonds are very rare and jewelers typically don’t carry or recommend using these diamonds for engagement rings because the price points are prohibitively high.

Is FL Clarity Worth It?

There are many types of imperfections and blemishes that can affect the clarity grade of a diamond, and some are less desirable than others. Internally flawless diamonds have absolutely no visible inclusions and only subtle blemishes, even when viewed through a 10x microscope lens. While it’s nice to think of your diamond as being “perfect”, the price associated with these diamonds is extremely high. Your money is better spent getting a bigger diamond than upgrading to such an incredibly high clarity grade as internally flawless. StoneAlgo typically recommends you target a VS2 clarity diamond to begin with, and make sure that you view images and videos of any diamond you plan on purchasing. Even if an online jeweler does not have images of a diamond listed on their site, you can contact their customer service to request that images and videos be e-mailed to you for evaluation.

Should I Focus On Color or Clarity?

Diamond buying is all about making small tradeoffs to maximize the criteria you care most about, whether that means getting the largest diamond or the highest quality stone (or somewhere in between) is a matter of preference that every buyer must determine. One thing you should know before you begin investigating tradeoffs is that going one grade lower in clarity will save you less than going one grade lower in color. It’s also important to consider that above a certain point, no one will be able to see the difference between a perfect diamond and a very good diamond unless they have a magnifying glass or a diamond of significantly higher quality to compare it to. We typically recommend you begin your search at I color, VS2 clarity and always see what the diamond market looks like for better or worse colors and clarities while requesting videos and images of every diamond you are interested in buying.

Drop us a Line if you need further assistance!

There are a lot of moving parts but generally speaking we try to maximize carat size for our given budget by sticking to the lower end of the color ranges we specified and searching for VS2 or better diamonds. SI1 diamonds are great if they’re eye clean, but they are a pain to find and often end up costing just as much as a VS2 diamond would. If you need one-on-one advice, we offer free support to all our users – simply drop us a line at management@stonealgo.com