Earlier this week on the blog we discussed how you should approach finding a good balance of diamond size, color, clarity, and cut for you budget. Today we will give you some recommendations for diamond quality combinations unique to both round and cushion cut diamonds. Please keep in mind these are not hard limits, just guidelines, and nice diamonds can of course exist outside of these ranges as well! We've included videos from our exclusive online video gallery which will give you a really close look and you can go directly there to see hundreds of loose diamond comparison videos across all shapes, sizes and qualities
ROUND
Cut: In terms of cut, opt for something with a Very Good cut - Excellent cut. Of course excellent is great but opting for a very good cut might allow you to go for a bigger carat size, higher clarity, or higher color within your target price range. Side by side and once set in a ring it is difficult to the untrained eye to see the difference between an excellent and very good. Fair, poor, and good cut grades won't maximize the sparkle in the best way but again, I have seen some good cut diamonds that look really nice as well!
Round diamonds do an amazing job of hiding color and imperfections. Rounds brilliants have the most sparkle from all the diamond shapes because they are precision cut to maximize shine.
Color: for round cuts we recommend at least a J color. While J is the end of the Near Colorless range, face up a near colorless round cut will have a white appearance. Of course if you are color sensitive, opt for higher color, since the difference can be seen side by side if you were to compare but once set in a ring these will look great. That is not to say you will would see no difference between a “E” and “I” color side by side but you can certainly get away with a lower color for the most part. Watch this video showing round brilliant cut diamonds from H to J color and you will notice they look very clear and colorless face up
Clarity: In terms of clarity, because they have so much sparkle you can opt for SI2 clarity and better. However, Not all SI1 and SI2's are eye clean so this will really be on a case by case basis. The location of the inclusions is important to consider (avoid once in the center), the color (black inclusions are more noticeable) and type (diamonds with many clouds will appear hazy)
See this video comparing color and clarity of round diamonds
CUSHION
Cushions are the most popular fancy cut diamond choice today. They come in a variety of shapes and are either square or rectangular with soft corners.
Cut: cushion cut diamond are considered to be a "fancy diamond" shape and because of this, GIA does not give an accurate cut grade on the actual diamond certificate. The cut of the diamond has be assessed based on the length, width, depth, and all proportions of the diamond which is very technical. Cushions should fall within the length to width ratios of 1:1 for a more square look, all the way to about 1:1.2 (approximately) a more rectangular/elongated look. Generally an elongated cushion will look bigger on the hand because it takes up more length on the finger. See this video showing the different elongated and square shapes of cushion cut diamonds
-Types of Cushions: there are a few variations on the actual type of cushion cut. Most common are called the Cushion Modified Brilliant. These will exhibit what we call a "crushed ice" look where there are many many small flashes of light giving off sparkle. This is a more common cutting style. Then there are an antique cushions which are very rare and give off bright chunky flashes of light. The next type is called a Cushion brilliant and these are our favorite cushion cuts to put in our rings because they have crisp clear faceting and bright sparkle with a larger than average face up size appearance. Keep in mind that diamonds listed as cushion modified on the GIA report can still exhibit the beauty and optical properties of a cushion brilliant should the pavilion facets be arranged properly. See this video showing the difference between a crushed ice cushion and a cushion with a more brilliant style cut
Color: Regular cushion cut diamonds with the crushed ice look will exhibit color more easily. For a regular modified cushion, opt for I color and above if you want it to look very white. For the cushion brilliant style cushions they tend to hide color very well and a J color can have a nice white face up appearance. That is what is nice about the cushion brilliant cuts, is you get to play with a slightly lower color and still have a diamond that looks very white, bright, and sparkly face up. This video compares cushion brilliants in the H to I color range
Clarity: SI2 clarity and above will be the norm for cushions. Like rounds, the brilliant style cushion cuts are good at hiding imperfections because the clear facets and sparkle detract the eye from any imperfection and it will be difficult to spot with the naked eye. The crushed ice style cushion cuts will exhibit imperfections more easily but there are eye clean SI2 cushion modified diamonds out there as well.
Keep an eye out for our next post which will go into a detail on the remaining diamond cuts and qualities you should be on the look out for.
