By Gary A.
Edited by Brian M.
Published Aug 13, 2024
Edited on Dec 6, 2024
When it comes to engagement rings, understanding the difference between karat and carat is crucial for making a choice that truly reflects your love and commitment. Dive into our expert guide to uncover what jewelers might not want you to know!
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Gold and diamonds – two of the finest things in life, and two important ingredients for almost any engagement ring (unless, of course, you’re opting for platinum).
Gold and diamond are highly complementary of one another, but they’re also very different. Why, then, do jewelers (seemingly) use the two terms interchangeably?
Diamonds are the obvious choice for an engagement ring. They are ancient, stronger than any other natural substance on earth, beautiful and highly coveted around the world – as they have been for thousands of years of human history.
Gold shares a similar origin story. Valued for most of human history, gold is an ancient and relatively rare substance produced deep underground by the raw forces of nature.
Both represent enduring, once-in-a-lifetime love better than anything else we can think of…
When you’re thinking about financial value, you’ll want to understand both karat and carat. Karat is used to refer to the purity of gold – and purity has a major impact on the value of a piece of gold jewelry. Jewelry with a higher gold content inevitably costs more.
Carat is a measure of diamond weight. Heavier diamonds are worth significantly more than lighter-weight (and, accordingly, smaller) diamonds. Carat will represent the most significant factor behind the price of your diamond.
Before we dive deeper into the specifics of Karat vs Carat, here are some practical tips to help guide your decision-making process.
Now that you’ve got these practical tips, use Jeweler AI below to find the perfect engagement ring that suits your style and budget:
Carat is used for more than just diamonds, although diamond is the most noteworthy gemstone to which it applies.
Carat is the same as 0.2 grams. A lot of people don’t realize that diamonds are pretty lightweight and that the national average carat weight used in engagement rings is not even half a gram.
As carat size increases, so does value – but not in a simple, linear way. 2 carat diamonds are much rarer and more revered than 1 carat diamonds (and so on), and that means that you can’t just double-up on your money and hope to get a stone twice as big.
You can read our full guide to carat and diamond value here.
Carat is a very important consideration, but it’s not as simple as saying, “I can afford to get a diamond this big’.
Other factors influence a diamond’s value – most notably, the rest of the Four Cs: color, clarity, and cut.
Getting the biggest diamond possible for your budget would mean sacrificing those other benchmarks of quality – and you definitely don’t want to do that. Size isn’t everything, and that’s certainly true in the world of diamonds.
Opting for a smaller diamond with better clarity, color, and cut is the key to making a good investment. You don’t need to get the best of everything – for instance, getting good clarity doesn’t mean settling with one of the top grades – but you do need to take them into account.
Pure gold is too soft for fine jewelry – unless it’s only intended to be worn a handful of times, and for very select occasions. Almost all gold jewelry you will encounter in your life will be ‘impure’, with the karat lowered from 24 (pure) to a number like 18K, 14K, or even lower.
So, the easiest way to think of karat is as a measure of purity. 24K is pure gold, and anything below that pertains to gold with alloying metals like platinum and copper. 18K gold holds a ratio of 18:6, while 14K gold has a ratio of 14:10 – in both cases, you get more gold than alloy, but you get significantly more in 18K than in 14K.
Gold is naturally yellow – both white and rose gold are made by mixing the right alloys to influence the metal’s color.
Pure gold is a very deep, vibrant yellow. As more alloys are added, that yellow becomes softer and, admittedly, more wearable. It appears less saturated and suits fine jewelry better in most cases.
Rose gold’s pinkish hue is obtained through alloys like copper and silver. Unlike yellow gold, rose gold actually grows more vibrant at lower karat types, since the metals that give it that rosy color are in higher concentration.
With white gold, the higher concentration of alloying metals is a perk, since it achieves that clear, crisp, white hue shoppers are looking for.
A lower karat offers more security to the ring since alloyed gold is stronger. If you’ve got a particularly active lifestyle, you’ll want to consider a lower karat type, but, for most people, the choice will be between 14K and 18K. While 10K and 12K gold both have their merits, the ratio is a little too off for most people, with more alloy than gold. The color is impacted quite severely, so that distinctively rich hue of gold appears washed out and pale.
You can read our full guide to 14K vs 18K gold here.
There really are no rules or ‘ideals’ when it comes to matching diamond carat with gold karat.
The bigger your diamond, the more you’ll want to pay attention to the strength and durability of your ring – although picking an engagement ring that is designed to withstand the test of time is just as important whether you’ve bought a 0.5 carat diamond or a 10 carat diamond. Don’t go for a karat type any higher than 18K, since you can’t be sure it won’t start to take on damage – or work loose around your diamond.
Ultimately, gold karat and diamond carat come down to your budget – what you feel able to pay, and what you’re willing to sacrifice for higher purity or bigger diamond size. It’s vital that you understand the difference between the two since both require your attention before you seal the deal on your engagement ring.
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