Types of diamonds

To Maya Bjørnsten, our founder and Assistant Designer to Mother Nature, raw diamonds are perfect. With all their imperfections laid bare, you see their effortless natural beauty. They are not the “perfect” shape, but they are perfect.

It’s not Maya’s passion for Danish design that makes Roughdiamonds.dk unique. It’s her hands, her eyes, her head, and of course her heart. Instead of focusing on the cut of the diamonds, Maya relies on her touch, discerning vision, and experience to choose the diamonds that are special enough to love just the way they are.

At Roughdiamonds.dk you too will see the beauty in the imperfect, the natural, and the unique. Here, the diamonds are not chosen based on the classic 4 C’s – Cut, Colour, Clarity, and Carat. Instead, it is the raw, uncut diamonds inherent beauty, inner life, and character that takes centre stage in the story. 

A story that started many years ago with nature fusing carbon atoms together under pressure and extreme heat to cool so quickly that it formed the unique crystals - natural, unpolished unique, and different. The beauty of Mother Nature. 

The eternity behind the creation of diamonds is why many choose diamonds to represent their love. And we believe love cures everything. Learning to love imperfection will feed your soul for a lifetime.

We embrace all those little imperfections and love it like it is. To us, that is the secret beauty of the rough diamonds, brave enough to show their beauty to the world without any cutting and polishing. That is the secret beauty of being and loving life as it is.

Each diamond has its own vibrancy and lustre for life. To cut it is to change its very personality. 

Se all our uncut jewellery designs here. 

Diamond types

Natural diamonds vs lab grown

Mankind has always had a desire to emulate and copy Mother Nature. This has led scientists to create diamonds in labs, where diamonds are created by using machines, intricate calculations, and highly difficult methods. When cut and polished, lab diamonds look exactly as Mother Nature’s natural diamonds and you will need advanced technology to distinguish between a lab grown and a natural diamond.

However, when the diamonds are in their rough state, it is clear to see which one was created with love by Mother Nature millions and billions of years ago and which one was grown in a factory a mere month ago.

See why we love rough diamonds here.

Conflict free, ethical raw diamonds only 

No matter how much beauty we see in them, the reputation of diamonds have become a bit taintented. Fortunately, in recent years, an awareness of ethical diamonds has grown and become integral to the diamond world.

This led to introducing the Kimberley Process in 2003, a procedure that ensures the diamonds have not been involved in funding in any conflict. Moreover, diamonds in all sizes, shapes, and colours are traced from the mine to the local government office and then to the respective diamond markets in the world. We only support the responsible way of sourcing these unique and unpolished pieces of nature’s art.

We choose to go beyond the Kimberley Process. We source our raw beauties from Europe’s most trusted diamond dealers in Antwerp who are members of the Responsible Jewellery Council. This means that all the conditions under which the diamonds have been sourced have undergone further inspections. There is no child labour at the mines, good labour and human rights conditions as well as even more attention to environmental impact.

See more on conflict free, ethical raw diamonds here.

Diamond cutting

Each raw diamond has its own vibrancy and lustre for life. To cut that diamond it is to change its very personality. This is how Maya prefers to assist Mother Nature, rather than altering her produce. Instead of cutting a diamond to a shape it never asked for, we simply give it a loving setting and let it be. Embracing life’s little imperfections.

We believe the hardest part is choosing the right diamond. So rather than focusing on cutting diamonds, Maya focuses on choosing the absolute best quality of diamonds. The ones that are perfect in themselves. The ones where diamond cutting would decimate its beauty. 

Maya relies on her eye for detail and experience to handpick the diamonds that are special enough to love just the way they are. Instead of tampering with Mother Nature, Maya creates a base for the diamond in the rough. 

Only the finest and most unique uncut diamonds enter into a perfectly imperfect piece of jewellery.  

Se all our uncut jewellery designs here. 

Diamond shapes

A diamond is a natural shape. A shape that comes from nature fusing carbon atoms together under extreme heat and pressure and then cooling quickly to form the crystals that we get to know as diamonds. It takes many, many years under the surface of Mother Nature. 

Diamonds come in ordered form (cubic) or unstructured, which is the octahedron. It is the

mother and father structure form. If you have too low a temperature, it will become a cube, if you have a prime temperature, then you will have an octahedron.

But natural rough diamonds also come in a variety of shapes if the circumstances have been different –  again from the most normal, the double pyramid-shaped octahedron rough diamonds to the flat triangles. The octahedron rough diamonds tend to have more volume and will, therefore, sit tall and proud in a ring and are very well suited to have a hole drilled through the top and set in a floating necklace with no setting. The natural triangles, on the other hand, tend to be flat which means that they will sit close to the skin. And then, there are all the shapes in-between. The beautifully rounded dodecahedrons, the rare double crystals, and more elongated shapes are each their own. Which one is right for you is hard to say, but we recommend that you think about your general style and see them with an open mind. When you see the right one, you will know.

Here is just a selection of a few commonly occurring diamond crystal structures: 

You can take your time to find the rough diamond that may not be what traditionalists call perfect, but is nevertheless right for you. Isn’t it a relief to know that not even a diamond is perfect?

Explore the wondrous shapes of diamonds here.

Diamond colour chart

The colour of a diamond is a glimpse into the diamond’s growing process. A direct connection to nature. Showing us a trace of another mineral being present in a small quantity when the diamond was created, this reminds us of the diamond’s growing process. The variety in diamond colour only adds to the imperfections we so love about raw diamonds. 

From a little lump of pale glass to a hint of colour, these tiny inclusions of colour, colour streaks or patches of cloudiness in a diamond is one of the many differences we love about raw diamonds and their natural colouring.  

Diamonds’ colours are as wide in variety as personal taste is, allowing you to find the perfect colour for you. Think of the colours in nature during spring, summer, autumn and winter. Get a glimpse, find your unique coloured or clear diamond. Nature is colourful and diamonds are no exception, yet tradition tells us to choose colourless diamonds. We believe in celebrating all of life’s colours. Below you can get a glimpse of the different coloured diamonds to choose from:

Se all our uncut jewellery designs here. 

Diamond sizes

During the process of cutting and polishing, around half of the weight of a rough diamond is removed. We consider that a tragedy. Because it removes not only the weight of that diamond’s size. It takes away the personality of this unpolished and unique raw diamond. 

And every raw diamond has its own personality, lustre, and vibrancy. The conditions it was created under is unique and adds to its natural edginess and size. To cut that diamond it is to change its very personality. A diamond has the size that is natural to it. No more, no less. 

Yet, for some reason, we sometimes feel a certain connection to certain diamonds, irrespective of its size. It can be the spheric rounded or raw spiked look, we want to let our fingers walk across their unpolished dents and apexes to truly sense them. And to some, it is the size of the diamond that makes them want to feel it. A tiny speciality that speaks delicately to your senses.

And what would that diamond size look like in a handmade setting? How will this size diamond look on you? 

We’d love to give you an indication of the sizes of different diamonds. The mini guide below will give you an indication of the size of different diamonds carat:

See our diamond size guides for rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets here.

Love Never Fails

Although we sell luxury, getting an education should not be. 

For every piece of jewellery we sell, the Maya Bjørnsten Foundation privately donates directly to the children and their school in the village of Chisanza in North Eastern Zambia. We hope to play a small part in helping young Zambians reach their dreams and fulfil their potential.

A remote area with a lot of opportunities to grow and prosper. It touches Maya’s heart, mind and soul to see what a huge difference a pen and a book can make. 

Now they have new school books, pens, papers and chalk from the first of hopefully many donations from Roughdiamonds.dk. In time we hope to help them get more teachers in primarily English, to provide them with tables and chairs so they are able to have something to learn at, and windows and doors for the school building they are so proud to have built for themselves.

Our second donation went towards making the school environment even better for the children. It made it possible to purchase new benches and tables, so now they no longer have to sit on the floor, as well as cement for the floors, walls and actual windows to keep the wind out. The donations also made it possible for the volunteer teachers to receive salaries and to fight a cholera epidemic.

See a glimpse from our visit in 2018.