The AVRA Times
Diamonds
What VS–VVS Clarity Means When It's on Your Hand
Almost every diamond has tiny marks inside it. Clarity is the grade for how hard they are to find, and ours are graded VS or VVS. Here is what that means at arm's length, at dinner, and under a jeweler's loupe.
Hold almost any diamond under a jeweler's loupe and you will find something in it. A pinpoint of carbon. A feather-thin line. A cloud so faint it looks like breath on glass. These are inclusions, marks left while the stone formed, and nearly every diamond, mined or lab-grown, has them.
Clarity is the grade for how hard they are to find. Graders look at the stone under 10x magnification and place it on a scale that runs, from cleanest to most included: FL, IF, VVS1, VVS2, VS1, VS2, SI1, SI2, then I1 to I3.
Every diamond AVRA sets is graded VS or VVS.
What the letters mean
VVS stands for very, very slightly included. A trained grader with a loupe has real trouble finding anything at all.
VS stands for very slightly included. The grader can find the marks under magnification, with some effort. You, wearing it across a table or in a mirror, will not.
SI, slightly included, is where marks start to show, especially in larger stones and in step cuts like the emerald, whose long open facets hide very little. A lot of jewelry is set at SI because it keeps the price down. Some of those stones look clean. Some have a dark speck you notice every time the light hits your hand.
Why we stopped at VS
We wanted a line we never have to explain. Nothing you see when you wear the piece, and nothing you find later when you look closer. VS is where that holds for the shapes we cut, including the pear and the emerald, where an inclusion has the fewest places to hide.
It also keeps the light clean. An inclusion interrupts the path light takes through a diamond, so fewer of them means the sparkle you see is coming back to you whole.
Every diamond piece ships with its IGI certificate, so the grade is written down by an independent lab. Read it, keep it, check it against the stone if you want to. That paper is the reason you never have to take our word for it.
Clarity is the grade most people never think to ask about. We chose it as the one we would not compromise on, because you will wear this piece close enough to notice.
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