What are Chocolate Diamond Rings?
Chocolate is a girl’s favorite treat and, as we know, diamonds are her best friend. Put the two terms together and you produce an irresistible product, the ‘Chocolate Diamond’. Read on to learn more about this miracle of marketing.
Ask yourself this question. What’s in a name? Would you rather eat ‘brown’ ice-cream or ‘chocolate’ ice-cream? The latter certainly seems more appealing. A simple name change can rebrand a product to make it much more attractive to the buying public. This is exactly what happened to ‘brown diamonds’ at the turn of the century.
What is a chocolate diamond?
Traditionally the value of a diamond has depended on its color as well as its size and purity. The perception is that the most valuable diamonds are clear, or an attractive color such as pink or blue. The most common color variation of a diamond is brown and these have been looked upon as the least attractive of diamonds and were previously used for industrial purposes. In the industry these gems were disparagingly known as ‘brownies’. The output of many diamond mines has a large percentage of brown diamonds, often between 50 and 80%.
How did brown diamonds become chocolate?
A chocolate diamond is simply a brown diamond with a different name. Brown diamonds were simply referred to as “poor color” although if the color was a darker brown they were sometimes called “fancy brown” to make them more desirable.
In 2000 a highly successful marketing campaign by the jewelry designers LeVian managed to rebrand the brown diamond as ‘chocolate’ and make it instantly more desirable and, therefore, valuable. The ‘Chocolate diamond’ has now become associated with LeVian. Other companies have come up with their own variations on the brown theme, including Cognac, Cinnamon, Clove and Honey, to jump aboard the bandwagon and to profit from the sudden demand for brown diamonds.
The rebranding was such a success for LeVian that they went on the coin other terms including “Sweet Chocolate”, “Chunky Chocolate Diamonds” and “Chocolate Truffle”. These are all trade-mark terms and cannot be used by other jewelry producers.
Celebrities the world over became enamored of the new chocolate diamond. It would be no exaggeration to say that Hollywood became infatuated with the new stone. Cameron Diaz wore a 20 carat cognac diamond, Jennifer Love-Hewitt paraded a 7 carat champagne diamond and award winner Jennifer Hudson wore a Fred Leighton chocolate diamond ring at the 2007 Academy Awards. Hale Berry, Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Lopez also own chocolate diamond rings and other jewelry. Now, thanks partly to celebrity endorsement such as this, over $5 billion worth of brown diamond jewelry is sold annually throughout the world. Because there are more of these diamonds mined they are the most affordable diamonds available. They will always be less expensive than a clear diamond of the same carat.
Where do Chocolate diamonds come from?
Although most diamond mines around the world produce a high percentage of brown diamonds, the particular dark-brown chocolate gems come mostly from Australian mines, especially the Argyle mine in north western Australia. The mine produces such a large ratio of brown diamonds they introduced a scale of color for their ‘brownies,. Ranging from C1, at the lightest end of the scale, to C7 at the darkest. The gems at the lighter end of the brown scale (C1) are called ‘champagne diamonds’ and are also in great demand.
Having said that, the largest and most famous brown diamond is the Golden Jubilee from South Africa. At over 545 carats it is also the largest faceted diamond in the world. This sultry, brown beauty is now owned by the King of Thailand. Other famous brown diamonds are the Earth Star, the Cross of Asia and the Kimberley diamond – but all these brown gems were discovered before the invention of the ‘chocolate’ label.
So, if you are a fan of all things chocolate, you should consider adding a piece of chocolate jewelry to your collection. And gentlemen, how can you go wrong by buying your lady a combination of the two special things in her life and presenting her with an affordable chocolate diamond ring for your next special occasion?
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