Shopping BasketThe Cut of a Perfect Diamond
How well a diamond is cut is the one thing that someone who knows nothing about diamonds can actually see when looking at the diamond out of its ring setting. How well does it sparkle? How bright and lively is it?
The more sparkle, the better the cut of the diamond.
Researchers, over time, have learned more about how the light 'inside' the diamond behaves. A well cut diamond will be beautifully bright because of the way it bounces light. It is the arrangement of its individual facets (faces), their arrangement one to one, and its general proportion that enable it to do this well. A badly cut diamond will 'leak' light out of its facets and therefore appear to be dull in comparison.
The diagrams below show how light behaves when entering a diamond. Note that in the ideal cut, the light bounces back up towards the table - the very side that people will be viewing a diamond from. It is this that gives the diamond its sparkle.
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Diamond Fire and Brilliance
The sparkle in diamonds can be referred to as its 'fire and brilliance'. The 'fire' refers to the rainbow effect that you get from the white light in a diamond. The 'brilliance' refers to the white light you see when looking at a diamond.
Diamonds have been cut and used in jewellery for hundreds of years. With the progress in technology, researchers have been able to optimise the 'fire and brilliance' that they can get from the shape of the round brilliant diamond. This progression has led to a dramatic change in the physical cut of the diamond.
The modern day round brilliant diamond owes its beautiful 'fire' and 'brilliance' to Tolkowsky. He mathematically calculated the angles and percentages of a round brilliant diamond to maximise its return of light, and labelled this the 'ideal cut'.
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The Cut of your Diamond
We only stock Excellent, Ideal and Very Good cut diamonds, as we believe that quality of cut is key to the performance of your diamond.
When your diamond is graded, the quality of its cut is one of its key features to be assessed. Beautifully scintillating, well cut diamonds will have been crafted by a skilled diamond cutter. Diamonds are graded from excellent and ideal, through to poor.
You can learn more about diamond cut and quality below, or click through to our Design-Your-Own feature in order to see how the different diamond qualities and shapes work in relation to one another.
Excellent Cut Diamond
This cut is intended to maximise brilliance and is as near to ideal proportions as possible. The typically smaller table sizes of these diamonds have the added benefit of creating a great deal of dispersion - or 'fire' - as well.
Very Good Cut Diamond
These cuts deviate slightly from the ideal cut proportions in order to create a larger diamond. However, diamonds in this category reflect the majority of the light that enters them, creating a good deal of brilliance.
Good Cut Diamond
Diamonds in this category will reflect much of the light that enters them. Their proportions fall outside of the preferred range because the cutter has chosen to create the largest possible diamond. Good Cut diamonds offer an excellent cost-saving without sacrificing quality or beauty.
Fair & Poor Cut Diamonds
A diamond graded as Fair or Poor will be cut to a lower standard that reflects only a small proportion of the light that enters it, losing fire and brilliance. Typically these diamonds have been cut to maximise the carat weight over most other considerations. We do not stock diamonds graded as fair or poor.
