Besides the rarity and status they bring, diamonds are often evaluated on their sparkle. After all, a diamond is only as beautiful as the way it sparkles. According to gemologists, each of the 4 C’s of diamonds plays a role in its appearance and beauty, but a diamond’s sparkle heavily relies on its cut.
What is Diamond Sparkle?
A diamond’s sparkle is a result of how it interacts with light. When light hits a diamond, it penetrates the diamond, bounces off the facets and ultimately returns light to your eye as brilliance, fire, or scintillation.
Brilliance refers to the amount of white light reflected through the bottom facets of the diamond. The more light a diamond reflects, the more brilliant it will be. This forms the basis of a diamond’s sparkle and brightness.
Fire, also known as dispersion, is the ability of the diamond facets to act like a prism and refract white light into the spectral colors, resulting in the rainbow-colored sparkle you see when the diamond is exposed to light.
Diamond scintillation, also known as sparkle, is the flashing of light from facet to facet towards the center of a diamond. The result is that the diamond appears to twinkle or sparkle, which is most visible when the diamond, the lighting, or the viewer moves.
Which Diamond Cut Sparkles the Most?
Answer: The round brilliant cut.
Diamonds are often cut into shapes made up of numerous facets. Each facet acts similarly to a mirror, reflecting light from one part of the diamond to another, then bouncing it back out of the diamond to create a beautiful sparkle. While every diamond sparkles under different light conditions, some diamond cuts or shapes often sparkle more than others.
Round brilliant cut diamonds are specifically designed to have the ideal number of facets for optimal sparkle. The 58 facets ( including the culet) of a round cut diamond are evenly distributed, which allows light to bounce off the surface evenly and create a beautiful sparkle. This formula for creating round brilliant cut was developed in 1919 by Marcel Tolkowsky, an engineer and diamond cutter when writing the thesis for his PhD.
Where to Buy Round Cut Diamonds
If you’re looking for a diamond with the maximum sparkle, you can never go wrong with a round brilliant cut. However, it’s important to note that the round brilliant cut is usually more expensive than other cuts because even though all diamond cuts sparkle, none can match what the round cut offers.
Additionally, diamonds cut to proper proportions, with well-defined facets, tend to reflect more light and sparkle than diamonds cut with poorly defined facets. That’s why, when buying a round cut diamond, it’s important to ensure that the diamond you choose is graded VG (very good) to EX (excellent). The higher the cut grade, the more the diamond will sparkle.
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