What You Need to Know About VVS Clarity Diamonds and How They'll Actually Look In Person
Learning the lingo is probably one of the most difficult — and confusing — parts of buying a diamond engagement ring.
There are so many vital things you need to know before making an investment, like the 4Cs of diamonds and what they mean. One of the 4Cs, clarity, is one of the most important to think about, though we tend to ignore it until later on in the buying process while paying attention to larger concerns, like carat and cut.
Diamond clarity refers to how the stone sparkles and looks under light and is graded on a scale that measures how many visible flaws (called diamond inclusions) it has, and how severely these flaws affect the brilliance of the stone. This scale — ranging from absolutely no inclusions (Flawless) to many inclusions (Included) — determines how beautiful your diamond will look to the naked eye.
VVS is one of the terms you’ll come across when shopping for a diamond engagement ring, but what does that mean — and is it a good choice?
What are VVS diamonds?
VVS diamonds sit under Flawless and Internally Flawless diamonds on the clarity scale.
VVS means the diamond has tiny imperfections in the diamond that are very difficult to identify even with 10x magnification — and they’re almost impossible to see without magnification. (For the record, some types of inclusions are “better” to have than others, as they don’t affect the sparkle of your stone nearly as much as other types. So a diamond having some inclusions is absolutely not a dealbreaker and in no way means those flaws will definitely bring down the brilliance.)
The VVS clarity range is broken down into two subclasses: VVS1 diamonds and VVS2 diamonds.
VVS1 vs VVS2: What’s the difference between VVS1 and VVS2 diamonds?
Though they’re both beautiful diamonds, VVS1 diamonds have fewer inclusions in number, size and location than VVS2 diamonds.
The size of the inclusions in VVS1 stones tend to be tiny and microscopic, the location tend to be off center in VVS1 and closer under the table facet in VVS2. The number of inclusions in VVS diamonds can vary from single inclusion or multiple. VVS1 diamonds typically only have one or two inclusions at the most.
And, yes, the placement of inclusions is important enough to bump a diamond out of the VVS1 range. Inclusions off to the side of your stone can often be hidden with prongs. So once the stone is placed in your engagement ring setting it’s as if the flaw isn’t there at all. But there’s nothing that can hide an inclusion that’s right in the center of your stone.
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