Selecting the best engagement ring for your partner can be quite a challenge, and especially so if you want to buy a white diamond. White diamonds can be very expensive; they are a lot more costly than the light yellowish diamonds that are much more commonly found in nature. However, it's worth paying the additional cost in order to own a more beautiful type of diamond. You don't propose marriage just to anyone and you probably wouldn't want to give your partner anything less than a beautiful white diamond ring for your engagement.

A diamond is truly the best option when it comes to engagement rings. Diamonds aren't just naturally elegant, they are also very special and very romantic. Good quality diamonds are expensive because they are very difficult to find. The chemical composition of diamonds is the element carbon in its pure form, just like graphite, even though the properties of these two substances are totally different. Diamonds take millions of years to form in nature and during their formation they undergo extreme amounts of pressure and very high temperatures inside of the earth before they can become what they are. One of the properties of the diamonds is their extreme hardness; in fact, they are the hardest natural material we know. That is one reason why we can truly say that "diamonds are forever".

There are four qualities of a diamond that you will need to look into when choosing the right diamond for your engagement; these four qualities are known as the "four C's" and they are :
Cut, Color, Clarity, and Carat.

The cut of a diamond refers to its shape and to the quality of the cutting. This is very important because if a diamond is cut according to good proportions, it can bring out the brilliance and the fire of the gemstone. Diamonds as well as other precious stones that are cut with incorrect proportions don't have much luster and look quite lifeless to the eye.

As far as the color of diamonds is concerned, white diamonds are not as rare as the diamonds with an intense fancy color, such as blue, green, or pink. Red diamonds are exceedingly rare in nature. Many of the fancy colored diamonds are created in the laboratory through irradiation.

Two other factors are very significant in determining the value of a diamond: its purity, also known as "clarity" and its weight measured in carats. Diamonds that are completely clean, without any inclusions, are naturally called flawless, and are the most valuable of all because of their rarity.

The weight of diamonds and of other gemstones is measured in carats. One carat is the same as 200 milligrams, or one fifth of a gram. Weight is a big factor in the value of a diamond: simply put, the larger and heavier diamonds command a much higher price per carat than smaller diamonds. If price is an important consideration for you, then you will have to buy a smaller stone, or one of lesser clarity, to fit your budget.