Diamond Clarity Chart: Every Grade From FL to I3

A diamond clarity chart lists the eleven grades of the GIA clarity scale in order, from Flawless at the top to Included at the bottom. It states what a grader has to find, under 10x magnification, to assign each one. Every laboratory that grades diamonds to an international standard uses this scale or a direct equivalent, and IGI grades lab grown diamonds on it.

Two things about the table are easy to miss. The first is that every definition is written from the grader's point of view, under magnification, not the buyer's point of view across a table. The second is that the same definition covers pairs of grades: VVS1 and VVS2 share a sentence, as do VS1 and VS2 and SI1 and SI2. The number distinguishes how close the stone sits to the boundary above or below it.

The ladder above places the grades in order and marks the point where Draco stops. Everything at VS2 or better clears the catalogue; nothing below it does. That is a policy rather than a laboratory rule, and the reason for it is in the next two sections.

Flawless and Internally Flawless. A Flawless stone shows no inclusions and no blemishes at 10x. Internally Flawless shows no inclusions but does carry surface blemishes. GIA added the IF grade so that cutters would not remove sound material simply to polish away a surface mark; it sits above VVS1 and below FL.

VVS1 and VVS2. Inclusions so slight that they are difficult for a skilled grader to see at 10x. In practice a VVS stone is clean to any eye without magnification, and the two grades differ in how hard the grader had to work.

VS1 and VS2. Inclusions are observed with effort and can be characterized as minor. This is the most important pair on the chart for a buyer. It is the highest band where the grade still describes something a grader had to search for, rather than something the eye lands on. A VS2 sits at the bottom of that band.

SI1 and SI2. Inclusions are noticeable to a skilled grader under magnification. Whether they are noticeable without magnification depends on the stone, the cut and the viewer. That is why SI is the band where two stones with the same grade can look most different.

I1, I2 and I3. Inclusions are obvious and may affect transparency, brilliance and durability. The word durability is the one to notice: at this end of the chart a characteristic can be large enough to be a structural weakness, not only a visual one.

A clarity grade is not a count of inclusions. It is a judgement of how much the characteristics present affect the stone, weighed across five factors: size, number, location, nature and relief.

Size is the largest influence, and it interacts with location. A small crystal directly under the table, where the eye looks first and the light passes straight through, affects the grade more. A larger one tucked near the girdle, where a prong will cover it, matters less. Nature matters because a feather, a crystal, a cloud and a needle behave differently in light. Relief is contrast: a dark crystal in a colourless stone shows; a white cloud in the same stone may not.

All of this is assessed at 10x magnification, and clarity, polish and symmetry can only be finalized using a 10x loupe. That single fact explains most of the confusion around clarity. The grade describes what a trained person found while looking for it with a lens. It does not describe what an untrained person will see across a dinner table.

Lab grown diamonds are graded exactly the same way. They carry their own characteristic inclusions: metallic flux crystals in HPHT material, and dark pinpoints or clouds in CVD material. The grader weighs them by the same five factors under the same lens.

The chart has eleven grades. In ordinary light and at ordinary viewing distance, the unaided eye can usually separate about three groups. Some stones look clean, some look clean until you look for the mark, and in some something is visibly there.

The first group covers everything from Flawless down to somewhere in VS. The second is the SI band, where the answer depends on the individual stone. The third is the I grades. That is why GIA's observation that most diamonds in jewellery stores fall between VS and SI matters. The retail market clusters exactly where the eye starts to tell the difference.

This is the logic behind the Draco floor. VS2 is the lowest grade at which the grading definition still says observed with effort rather than noticeable. Setting the floor there means every stone in the catalogue reads clean without a lens, and no buyer has to learn the chart to avoid a stone that does not. Because the floor applies to every piece, clarity is not a variable in Draco's pricing at all; the price follows carat weight, metal and setting labour instead.

The same letter grade does not look the same in every shape, and this is the part of the chart that buyers most often learn the expensive way.

A round brilliant breaks light into scattered flashes through 57 or 58 facets. That constant movement disguises small inclusions, so a VS2 round is almost always clean to the eye and many SI1 rounds are too. Cushions and radiants with crushed ice faceting hide inclusions even more thoroughly.

A step cut does the opposite. Emerald and asscher cuts are built from long parallel planes with a large open table, so looking into one is like looking through a window. There is no scatter to hide behind. An inclusion that would vanish in a round sits in plain view in an emerald cut of the same grade. That is why step cuts are often bought one or two grades higher for the same visual result.

This is also why the Draco floor does the most work on the emerald and asscher pieces in the catalogue. On a step cut, VS2 or better is the difference between a stone that reads as glass and one that reads as a stone with something in it.

Every Draco diamond is IGI certified at E to F colour and VS2 or better and ships with its certificate. The report can be provided on request before purchase and verified free at IGI.org.

Every piece carries 30 day returns, the Lifetime Authenticity Guarantee, free resizing, and free insured worldwide shipping to 25 markets, delivered duty paid with nothing collected at the door, and signature on delivery.

Because the floor is the same across the catalogue, a buyer here does not choose a clarity grade. Browse the complete collection, or start a commission at create your piece.