April's birthstone - Diamonds

Diamonds, the most iconic of all gemstones is the birthstone for April. It’s also the gemstone that marks the 60th and 75th wedding anniversaries. This beautiful gemstone has been treasured throughout history for its beauty and purity. 

Here's a few diamond facts to impress your friends with! 

• Diamond forms under high temperature and pressure in conditions that exist about 100 miles beneath the Earth’s surface.

• Diamonds are the only gemstone made up of a single element, Carbon - C, these atoms are bonded in essentially the same way in all directions which is what makes a diamond so hard that you can only scratch it with another diamond.  On the Mohs hardness scale diamond is 10.

• Graphite is another mineral that is also only made up of carbon, however, it’s formation process and crystal structure are very different. Graphite is so soft you can write with it.

• The largest cut diamond is the “Star of Africa 1’ or the “Cullinan 1’ diamond cut at 530.20 carats! This giant of a stone was cut from the colossal 3106 carat rough diamond known as the Cullinan discovered in 1905 in Pretoria, South Africa,  and cut into 9 large diamonds and 100 smaller pieces.

• Slightly further afield….there is the Lucy Star! The largest diamond ever discovered is not on Earth but 50 lightyears away in the constellation Centaurus. This white dwarf star is a crystallised carbon equivalent to 10 billion trillion trillion carats.  

A few of our favourite pieces!

(Left - front detail of the Marie ring, Centre - Diamond half band, Right - bespoke 0.7ct diamond and 18ct Fairtrade white gold engagement ring)

One in a million!  The average yield in most diamond mines is 1 part diamond to 1 million parts rock. For this reason, it’s so important to choose an ethically sourced gemstone. To know the origin of your diamond and what the mining company is doing to consider and minimise the environmental impact. All the diamonds used in Audrey Claude pieces are ethically sourced and traceable. Find out more about the ethical sourcing of our gemstone here. 

There a few nuggets of knowledge to arm yourself with before embarking on purchasing a diamond ring. If you’ve not already heard, these are the 4C's - 

Carat, Colour, Clarity, and Cut. 

You can read more about the 4C’s and what to look for when choosing your diamond here.