Diamonds really are a girl’s best friend – thank you Marilyn Monroe!

Diamond is April’s birthstone, and to my mind they really deserve their place as the king of gemstones. Apart from the unparalleled beauty of a large, beautifully cut and polished diamond, I love the fact that they are the hardest of all the gemstones, so will never get scratched or roughed up when worn as a ring or bracelet, as is the case with so many other stones. Diamonds are in fact 140 times harder than the next closest gemstone.

So much has been written on diamonds, how to judge and buy, with issues of colour, cut and clarity, that its hard to add anything new. So here’s a word for an unsung diamond hero, which rarely gets a look in in the West, the polki diamond. Polkis are a prominent feature of Indian jewellery and especially wedding jewellery, where enormous stones are set in the most fabulously opulent of jewellery. Polkis are lower grade diamonds, almost of industrial quality for drills etc, but are sliced lengthways to form great swathes of gem, often with blacked oxidised finishes and foil underlay. So a very different look, at a fraction of the price of a polished stone, worth checking out to see if this is something you’d like to add to your jewellery box – I have!

Plus, don’t forget fancy diamonds are available in many other colours. Some of the most rare colours are red, purple and green, although yellow and blue are seen more often. Size plays a big part in the colour of a diamond, the bigger the stone, the more obvious the colour – and subtle differences can cause dramatic variations in price.

We’re all different with different tastes, so just find something you love and enjoy wearing it. I don’t believe in keeping diamonds in the safe, out of harms way. If you’re lucky enough to own them, then wear them and enjoy them.