Diamonds are cut from rough stones and then polished carefully to become the beautiful gems that have been treasured by man for centuries. When they are first found, diamonds look nothing like what twinkles from our fingers, necks and earlobes. In fact, if you do not know what you are looking for, you would probably walk past a freshly mined and unpolished diamond.

When a diamond is graded, it receives scores for four categories, the Four C’s. These are cut, color, carat and clarity. Of them, cut is the most important because it so greatly affects the other aspects. To get a perfect round cut diamond for instance, the craftsmen must carefully and expertly cut away 50-60% of the rough diamond surface to release the beauty inside.

A diamond that has had shallow cuts will not have nearly the brilliance that it should because light will not reflect back to the viewer. On the other hand, diamonds with very deep cuts will also lose most of the light which is directed into them and will appear equally lifeless and dull. A diamond’s cuts must be of equal depth, and of the equal shape and size on both sides (symmetry) or the sparkle factor, known as brilliance will be affected.

Among the most common flaws that are found in most diamonds are the wrong number of facets, facets that do not line up correctly, chips, lines, breaks and missing culets (the bottom portion of the diamond). Some of these flaws are so small that they would never be noticed by the naked eye while others may be large enough to be noticed right away. Only you know what level of perfection is necessary for you- and there are so many factors to consider you may have to make some compromises.