Diamond Cut
Why is Cut Important?
Diamond cut is one of the most important aspects when evaluating a diamond. In this instance, the cut alludes not to the diamond shape as often misunderstood, but the harmony between a diamond's dimensions, proportion, symmetry, polish, facet sizes, facet angles, and many other components that help forge a diamond's beauty. How ideal a diamond is cut is directly proportional to its allure to the eyes, which is the result of having a better capacity to reflect and refract light.
Out of all proportion components in diamonds, table and depth have the most significant effect on cut. Both table and depth are shown as percentage points in relation to the diamond's diameter. Subsequently, the appropriate table and depth critically impact the reflection and refraction angles of a diamond. Generally speaking, an exceptionally cut diamond is designed to reflect most of the light back out of its top surface through the table in order to bring out the ideal balance of brilliance and fire. In contrast to that, a poorly cut diamond with a few percentage points or degrees off can let light through from the bottom instead of the top, showing a dull diamond with dark center due to light leakage.
The Expert
A diamond cutter is also called a lapidary. The word lapidary originated from lapis; which literally means stone in Greek.
Types of Light Reflection
What is Brilliance?
The most recognizable beauty trait in a diamond is its brilliance. Diamonds are full of luster because the reflections of scattered white light goes back through the top with the help of well positioned and proportioned facets.
There are two kinds of facets on a diamond: real and virtual. Real facets are those that are physically cut and formed onto the surface of the stone; namely the table, crown, pavilion, star, etc., while virtual facets are called that because they look like individual facets that give back light differently than nearby facets. Every time light enters a diamond, it bounces off of numerous facets with differing angles, causing various light effects inside.
As rays of light ricochet, they eventually reemerge as white light coming out of the diamond top referred to as brilliance. A magnificent diamond cutter cut diamond so that light reflects off of the facets in a way that it recombines to appear as a synergistic white light that is more than the sum of its parts.
What is Fire?
The colorful and hypnotizing glitter in a diamond is called the fire. Diamonds exhibit this vibrant glow because they are good at scattering, refracting, and reflecting white light, which is a combination of several light waves of different color spectrums that travels together.
Fire occurs because light is forcibly decelerated when coming into contact with a denser substance like diamonds. When white light hits a diamond, it is dispersed into various colors of a rainbow. Then, facets inside the diamond would refract and reflect each light wave separately until they come out the top as a spark of a different color called the fire.
A masterfully cut diamond will show its fire inside and outside the stone, exhibiting flickers of exquisite colors between all its facets. As such, diamonds with exceptional fire will appear full of life.
What is Scintillation?
The contrast between the bright and dark areas in a diamond is the scintillation. Purposefully showing dark shadows in a diamond might sound counterintuitive, but cutters strive to strike the equilibrium between the white glitters and dark shadows in order to produce a seemingly more luminous gemstone.
Beauty Through Precision
Natural mined diamonds do not have a set shape before worked, but they are most often found in the shape of an octahedron. Professional cutters will measure and calibrate the uncut diamond in order to maximize the beauty and value of the polished stone before working on the actual cutting and polishing work needed.
Diamond Cut Grading
Years of researching the interaction between light and a round brilliant diamond made the GIA out to be the leading gem laboratory to grade diamond cut holistically. GIA has listed seven interdependent characteristics that determine a diamond's cut grading, namely: brightness, dispersion, scintillation, weight ratio, durability, polish, and symmetry.
Out of these seven components, polish and symmetry are graded separately to the cut grade in a similar grading scale. Meanwhile, the other five ingredients to the cut grade are evaluated individually and the lowest score is determined to be the cut grade. For instance, if a diamond is great at everything but only get a "Good" score on its light dispersion, then its cut would be graded as "Good".
Golden Eiffel follows the GIA cut scale to determine its diamonds' cut grades whenever a gem laboratory report is not available. In the case of fancy-shaped diamonds where the cut is not graded in their diamond certificates, we choose to individually assess the cut using the parameters mentioned above in combination with some other secondary factors like table, depth, ratio, and some subjective observation to help determine the cut grade.
Virtual Mirrors
Virtual facets are called that because they look like individual facets that give back light differently than nearby facets. This phenomenon happens because each real facet bouncing light back around multiple times from various angles makes it seem that there are countless facets when there are only a limited number of them, hence the name.
Diamond Cut's Relationship with Carat Size
A diamond's cut is graded based on specific proportions and angles of a diamond's facets, while carat is a measure of a stone's weight. A difference in cut grading refers to small differences in the proportions of a diamond, which will affect the actual spread of a diamond of the same carat weight. For instance, an excellent cut 5 carat round diamond can appear larger compared to a poorly cut 6 carat one because a diamond with inferior cut would often have much of its carat weight contained in its depth, making a "thicker" diamond that looks smaller up top compared to another diamond with an ideal cut.
Diamond Cut's Influence on Color and Clarity
A diamond's cut can change how it shows color and clarity. The interaction between excellently crafted facets in a diamond that is cut to the ideal standards creates a camouflage around the color and clarity characteristics of a diamond. As a result, well cut SI diamonds are more likely to be eye-clean and color would not be as apparent in excellent cut diamonds compared to poorly cut stones.
Diamond Cut's Influence on Luster
Great luster is the defining spirit of a diamond; the eye-catcher everybody in the room cannot resist peeking at. Well-cut diamonds will exhibit incredible luster thanks to the ideal facet angles and many other proportions that highlight the contrast between their brilliance and fire, giving them more personality.
Diamond Cut's Influence on Price
A diamond's cut grading will influence its price significantly given that all other aspects are the same. Considering all the impact a superior cut have on a diamond we discussed above, there is no question why it has such a big influence on the stone's price tag.
Hence, at Golden Eiffel, we believe that the best cut diamonds are worth the slightly bigger price tags considering all the conclusive effects it has on a diamond's charm.