Heart Diamonds – The Fancy Cut Diamond

Heart diamonds are the ultimate gift for Valentine’s Day. A Sparkling heart shaped diamond helps you to express your love for your special someone with grace, elegance and romance.

Although they are hard to find, because of their increasing popularity, retailers and manufacturers are giving them more importance and trying to bring them in large numbers.

This fancy-cut diamond reveals the bow-tie shadow effect although high quality stones exhibit this effect minimally. They typically contain 59 facets.

When fixed in prong setting they look more marvelous than in any other jewelry setting, since the beauty of the shape gets noticed easily with this setting. Usually five prongs would be required to hold the stone. Two prongs will hold the lobes, another two to hold the sides and a V-shaped prong holding its pointed tip.

They are moreover popular with solitaire rings and solitaire pendants. They also look stunning in stud earrings and as diamond ring side stones too. Check out some of the different types of jewelry adorned with a heart shaped diamond:



Solitaire Ring:

Image Source: http://ringoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/heart-solitaire-ring.jpg


Solitaire Pendant:

Image Source: http://www.overstockjeweler.com/images/I/overstockjeweler_1943_52309453.gif

Side stone Ring:

Image Source: http://www.ritani.com/productimages/1237819700_1RZ1235AAHP.jpg


Stud Earring:

Image Source: http://www.rothemcollection.com/pc/catalog/heart_diamond_earrings_w2_870_general.jpg

Identifying the right heart-shaped diamond:

The brilliance of these diamonds differs on their depth. Deeper the diamond, the more brilliance it has. Diamond with more depth although sparkles with brilliance, but may look smaller than its ideal size. Flatter diamonds have lesser brilliance and radiance. Hence heart shaped diamonds should be chosen carefully.
Also, while purchasing heart shaped diamonds, one must be sure that the top lobes of the stone are even.
The two halves should be well-defined and should look symmetrical at least for a naked eye.
The color of the diamond should be given special attention while choosing such diamonds. If it has low-quality color, then it may be noticeable from the corners of the cut.

Ideal Cut Diamonds

The “Cut” plays a significant role in the four Cs of a diamond. It not only defines the basic facet arrangement but also affects its brilliance. The cut of a diamond can be classified based on how the light reflects from the stone and hence creating particular amount of brilliance from the diamond.

The different types of diamonds are:
Shallow Cut
Ideal Cut
Deep Cut

Among them, Ideal cut diamonds are mostly preferred since light reflects from the top of the stone hence creating maximum brilliance among all the types. Also, irrespective of the direction from where the light has entered into the stone, all the light gets reflected increasing the diamond’s brilliancy and radiating exquisite light. In shallow cut ones, the light refracts away from the bottom hence resulting the diamond to loose its brilliance and making the stone appear glassy and opaque whereas in deep cut diamonds refraction of light takes place from the sides making it dull and lifeless.

This categorization depends on the proportion in which the diamonds are cut. An Ideal Cut Diamond has the proportion as shown below:

These measurements differ for different gemological laboratories.

Different grading laboratories have assigned different names to the diamonds with Ideal cut like Superb Ideal Cut, American Ideal Cut and even Excellent Cut. GIA (Gemological Institute of America) refers to it as Excellent Cut diamonds.

Since producing such diamonds requires exact and precise measures, they usually cost more than other diamond cuts.

Diamonique Diamonds - The Cultured Diamond

Diamonique is a type of simulated diamond and is the brand name used by QVC shopping network. In other words, it is sold exclusively by QVC, although secondhand products are sold by other websites.

This stone belongs to the category of Cubic Zirconia (CZ). It is considered as a cheaper substitute for real diamonds since they can be bought for a few dollars as compared to real diamonds costing thousands of dollars. Like the real ones, Diamonique diamonds also come in different cuts and shapes including round, cushion, radiant etc.

Real diamonds are considered as the hardest gemstone and measure 10 on Moh’s scale. (Moh’s scale is used for measurement of hardness of a gemstone.) Similarly, Diamonique diamond measure 8.5 which are similar to natural sapphire and ruby gemstones and are marginally less hard as compared to real diamonds. Hence hardness is one of the positive traits of Diamonique diamonds.

Weight of Diamonique diamonds is more than that of real ones. So when real and these diamonds of same size/carat are weighed, the real diamonds will be lighter hence distinguishing them from each other.

Image Source: http://images-p.qvc.com/is/image/j/23/j14192301

Diamonique diamonds are also available in an extensive range of fancy colors hence giving buyers a wider option of such diamonds.

To determine the quality of these diamonds, QVC provides detailed information about its 6Cs. In addition to the 4Cs –Cut, Color, Clarity and Carat, QVC considers Cost and Confidence of the diamond. Cost indicates that the stone is available at a fraction of cost than the real one and Confidence assures that the fact that it is a simulated diamond cannot be determined by untrained eye since it is set in precious metal.