CUT

When balancing the many characteristics diamonds have in picking the perfect stone for your bride to be, the quality of cut is a diamond’s most important attribute. The quality of the cut will oftentimes have the strongest influence on a diamond’s allure & beauty. The reason for this is that the quality of diamond cut is measured by the balance of all its measurements in order to produce the most light from the top of a stone. If a diamond is too shallow, light will be lost through the bottom of the stone while a stone that is too deep will allow light to fall through the sides.

A diamond’s cut quality can impact the visual look of its size, its color and most importantly the way it sparkles for the lady wearing it. At deBoulle, we help you find the balance of this quality along with carat weight, color and clarity in order to pick the perfect diamond to fit your needs.

GIA® CUT GRADES

The Ideal Cut
refers to a very limited number of stones. Roughly the top 5% of stones will reach this level of perfection. A diamond that is an “ideal cut” will reflect & shine nearly all of the light that enters it.

The Very Good Cut
refers to a diamond that sits at the top 15% of the quality cut scale. This is a beautiful stone, but the light pattern will be very slightly under the Ideal cut diamonds.

The Good Cut
diamond accounts for ~25% of the diamond market based on their quality of cuts. These diamonds will reflect a majority of the light that enters them, but will be dance less for the eyes than a ideal cut or very good cut.

The Fair Cut
is a quality diamond, but not as brilliant as good cut. With a fair cut, this can mean that the cutter worked to maximize carat weight or to avoid inclusions.

The Poor Cut
refers to diamonds that are significantly out of proportion so as to be much too deep or too shallow cuts. This quality of cut will cause the diamonds to lose light either out of the sides or the bottom of the stone, which will inherently reduce the diamond’s sparkle.

*K through Z – Diamonds graded below K are not generally carried at deBoulle Diamond & Jewelry.

When picking the perfect diamond for your love, the cut should be valued first because this has the greatest effect on the brilliance of each stone.

Oftentimes, if a diamond does not meet the deBoulle standards they will be recut to maximize their brilliance in order to meet our exacting standards. An ideal cut is very rare and very desirable, but all of a diamond’s characteristics can be measured to help you determined a good balance of qualities in a diamond perfect for your love.

DIAMOND SHAPES

A diamond’s shape is often one of the biggest decisions as the process begins in finding the perfect diamond.

There are two different types of cut categories: Brilliant Cut Diamonds & Step Cut Diamonds.

Diamonds that are brilliant-cut have facets that radiate from the center due to their triangular & kite shapes whereas step cuts are made from long & skinny stepped facets that are made to produce house of mirrors effect.

ROUND BRILLIANT CUT

A round brilliant cut is the most popular shape for diamond engagement rings. Because of this, this is also the most available shape of stone on the market. If one is looking for very specific characteristics, the most options will often be found in round brilliant cuts. Over many years, the round brilliant cut has been perfected with a focus on producing the most sparkling and brilliant stones possible.

EMERALD

An emerald cut diamond is cut with rectangular facets and features a large & open table. An emerald cut is not uniform in its length-width ratio so each stone will have a slightly different shape / size. Some can be longer, shorter or even square. One quality to pay particular attention to with an emerald cut is the clarity of the stone since the large open table will draw attention to this characteristic – often with SI2 or worse stones it can be quite easy to look down through the table using the plot to find the inclusions. This is even easier using the GIA Diamond Grading Certificate’s plot to determine where one should look for any imperfections.

MARQUISE

A marquise cut diamond is generally long and skinny with a focus on making the stone look as large as possible for the given carat weight. It will also make one’s fingers look even longer and skinnier.

PEAR

A pear shape diamond is in varying shapes of a teardrop. Like the marquise-cut, this brilliant-cut diamond shape often makes one’s fingers look longer and slimmer. One detail to be aware of with a pear shape diamond is to avoid a diamond that features a strong “bow-tie” effect when looking through the top of the stone.

CUSHION

A cushion cut diamond is known for showing increased brilliance thanks to large facets and rounded edges. This brilliant cut diamond can some times be difficult to distinguish between other cuts depending on how obvious the curves along each edge.

PRINCESS CUT

A princess cut diamond is known for its sharp, pointed corners and a beautiful fiery brilliance for the wearer. While shape is generally very square, this characteristic will vary from stone to stone as each is made to maximize the value and characteristics of the rough a diamond cutter starts from.

ASSCHER

An asscher-cut diamond is very similar to an emerald cut stone, but it is much more square. The length to width ratio on an asscher-cut diamond will be close to 1.

RADIANT

A radiant cut diamond can be more square or more rectangular, but it is distinguished by its trimmed corners.

HEART

A heart-shaped diamond is a distinctive choice of cut in exactly the shape we use to symbolize love.

THE FOUR C’s

COLOR

With white diamonds, the color is graded based on how little color a diamond exudes to the viewer. Diamond’s of similar color are placed alongside each other for comparison to determine an official color grade.

CUT

When balancing the many characteristics diamonds have in picking the perfect stone for your bride to be, the quality of cut is a diamond’s most important attribute.

CLARITY

Diamond Clarity is a way to measure the level of tiny imperfections that exist within almost all diamonds except the very finest.

CARAT WEIGHT

While one initially views a diamond’s size by looking at the stone and how big the table or flat top portion of it appears, a diamond’s size is measured in weight. Carats are a unit that specifically refer to the weight of a diamond.