Colorless and near-colorless diamonds are sometimes referred to as “white,” in contrast to fancy-color diamonds, but among the fancy colors is a rare appearance described as Fancy White Diamonds.
White diamonds have a perceived color hue resembling snow, refined sugar, or pasteurized whole milk. Such diamonds contain a high concentration of submicroscopic inclusions that scatter light, yielding a translucent “milky” white face-up color. The nature of these inclusions is unknown.
White is the lightest color perception evident to the eye and the mind. White is also known as a neutral (achromatic) color having no saturation yet having a measurable range of lightness.
Popular names for different mixtures of white are cream, ivory, milk, moonstone, opalescent, pearl, salt, snow and sugar.
Fancy white diamonds are diamonds with a milky white color, similar like white moonstone. They contain minute particles which scatter the light, thus leave the stone slightly turbid white.
These diamonds are often called “opalescent” because the dispersion of the stones looks somewhat like the play of color of opals. These diamonds are very rare, as rare as pinks or certain blues, but normally not very attractive and much, much cheaper. The stones are usually very hydrogen rich diamonds (pure type laB).
White diamonds can have a brownish, bluish, yellowish and grayish appearance.