Diamond Cut: The 4C's of Diamonds

Cut is the characteristic to consider when choosing your diamond. Why? A diamond’s cut is the key to its brilliance and sparkle.

A selection of loose Canadian-made diamonds in pear, oval, radiant, and asscher cuts for custom Ecksand engagement rings.

The Key to Your Diamond’s Beauty

Of all the 4C’s, cut is the characteristic most crucial to a diamond’s beauty. So what is diamond cut? Cut refers to the way a diamond’s facets are arranged, including its symmetry, proportions, and polish. For example, the facets in a round-cut diamond are arranged differently than the facets in an emerald-cut diamond, causing light to reflect differently for each cut. All of these factors come together to determine how much light a diamond will reflect. Simply: cut determines the brilliance and fire of your diamond. It takes expert craftsmanship and know-how to ensure that a diamond’s cut delivers the most exquisite sparkle possible.

Ecksand's geometric diamond logo for our Canadian-made diamond engagement rings and fine jewelry.

Ask an Ecksand expert. Which of the 4C’s is most important?

According to Ecksand co-founder Yoan Gehant-Vidoni, ‘cut’ is the most important of the 4C’s as it determines a diamond’s beauty and brilliance. A diamond can have high-grade clarity and colour, but if it’s cut poorly the other 3C's become far less effective. Clarity and colour affect the visual appearance of the stone, but cut contributes to the light reflecting out of the stone from the facets, and so it is responsible for the incredible shine and prestige that diamonds are known for.

A Canadian jeweler handcrafts a custom three-stone diamond ring in the Ecksand Montreal atelier.

The Diamond Trifecta: Cut, Polish, and Symmetry

We already know that cut fuels a diamond’s brilliance, but why are polish and symmetry important? These two characteristics interact with your diamond’s cut and are essential to your diamond’s overall beauty. Polish accounts for your diamond’s glass-like finish and symmetry defines how precisely a diamond’s facets align with each other. Together with cut, these aspects affect how much light reflects throughout your diamond. Like cut, polish and symmetry are graded along a scale, with excellent polish and symmetry producing the most brilliant diamond. However, it's important to note that only round diamonds are graded by their cut, polish, and symmetry. Fancy-shaped diamonds (any diamond that is not a round-cut, such as Emerald-cut diamonds, Oval diamonds, and Pear diamonds for example) do not have a cut-grade assigned by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). Fancy-shaped diamonds are assessed by their polish and symmetry alone.

Each round diamond at Ecksand is guaranteed to have excellent polish, symmetry, and cut, ensuring the most beautiful brilliance for your solitaire or a trilogy engagement ring. For fancy-shaped diamonds, including those available through our diamond ring builder, we offer both excellent and very good options in polish and symmetry, so you can be confident in choosing a high-quality diamond regardless of clarity or color. Now that you have learned about cut, why not take a look at the other 4C’s, namely Carat, Colour, and Clarity?