Colored Diamonds
I personally love white diamonds over any other color because you can’t mistake them for any other natural stone because of their sparkle. Don’t get me wrong, if someone offered me a nice yellow, orange, or pretty much any other color of diamond, I would take it in a heart beat. What is neat about colored diamonds is that they can be less expensive that white diamonds and they sparkle more than other gemstones of the same colors.
Diamonds can come in any color of the rainbow. Generally, if you see a diamond that is not white, it is treated (or you are going to pay a pretty penny for it.) Diamonds are generally irradiated to get them to change color. Irradiation is a permanent and generally safe process that is applied to natural diamonds. I say generally safe, because it is not ALWAYS safe.
Yellow Diamond
When the first person started irradiating diamonds, they used radium salts which did change the color of the stones, but also made them radioactive. Even the next evolution of irradiating diamonds left them radioactive for a few hours after treatment.
Today, electron bombardment is used to change the color. The electron bombardment changes the stone to blue or green color. The stone is then annealed (heated) if they want to the stone to be orange, yellow, brown, or pink.
I found the company Suncrest Diamonds in Tuscon that is using a whole new idea to change diamond colors. This company has found a way to achieve the same colors with heat and pressure that you get with irradiation. Most of their stones are yellow but when I was in Tuscon they had reds and oranges also. This could be a good option for red diamonds since reds are the rarest color found in diamonds. Their stones are a bit more expensive than the usual irradiated stones, but the colors are amazing and permanent without the having to explain irradiation to a customer.
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