What Is The Difference In DMC, Diamond Dotz And AB Drills?

Let's start with the fact that DMC, Diamond Dotz and AB Drills — all of them are drills for diamond painting. But what is the difference, you will ask? First of all, these all are different color codes of diamonds.

What is DMC?

DMC stands for Dollfus-Mieg and Company. They use the same color code as the one used for embroidery floss (DMC-number). It is the most popular thread in the world. That is why it is easy to track your drills and add new ones to your existing collections from other paintings. But still, check the colors just in case before mixing the diamonds.

Here are some examples of DMC codes:

DMC square diamond drills color chartDMC round diamond drills color chart

And here is an example of the completed partial drill diamond painting:

Completed partial drill diamond painting using DMC codes

What is Diamond Dotz?

Diamond Dotz is the name of the company which uses their own color coding. Most Diamond Dotz colors have their own matching in DMC codes. For example:

Diamond Dotz CodeDiamond Dotz NameDMC CodeDMC Name
8001Black310Black
8002WhiteBlancWhite
8003EcruEcruEcru/off-white
8004Pale Rose3713Salmon - VY LT
8005Mid Rose761Salmon - LT
8006Rose760Salmon
8007Dark Rose3712Salmon - MED
8008Geranium3328Salmon - DK
8010Light Blush353Peach
8011Blush352Coral - LT

Among the Diamond Dotz colors, in addition to the analogues of the regular DMCs, there are also Aurora Borealis, Metallics, Neon & Glow-in-the-Dark.

It is not so popular as DMC but still, there are a lot of kits with these codes. On their website, there is a big variety of different paintings. So you can order the whole kit or just Diamond Dotz drills for your projects.

Here are some examples of Diamond Dotz codes:

Diamond Dotz color codes example 1Diamond Dotz color codes example 2
Diamond Dotz color codes example 3Diamond Dotz color codes example 4

And here is an example of the completed partial drill diamond painting:

Completed partial drill painting using Diamond Dotz codes

What is AB?

AB stands for Aurora Borealis. And these are special extra-shining diamonds' colors. Usually, they are not included in the kits, but still, they can be bought separately. They are very expressive and bright, so they are most often used to contrast the specific area of the picture and give it more shining.

Here are some examples of Aurora Borealis codes:

Aurora Borealis drills example 1Aurora Borealis drills example 2Aurora Borealis drills example 3

And this is the comparison of the regular diamonds & Aurora Borealis:

Comparison of regular diamonds vs Aurora Borealis

Just look at the example of the completed diamond painting (there are only a few ABs):

Completed diamond painting with Aurora Borealis drills

Final Thoughts

We hope that now you know the difference in all of these types of diamonds.

And if you can't wait to start new projects or you got the inspiration for finishing the old ones — we are happy to note that our free GemsFlow Diamond Painting app supports all of these codes (DMC, Diamond Dotz and AB Drills).

You can read more about it in our article GemsFlow Diamond Painting Log Book Mobile App.

← Back to blog