So here we are at cut.
So cut is often seen as being the most important factor out of the four Cs.
And there's a lot of good reason for that.
So how your diamond is cut is really going to determine two things.
So number one,
it's going to determine how light shines through your stone
and number two, cut is actually going to have the biggest impact
on how small or how big your diamond is going to look.
It actually has a much bigger impact than carat on the size of your stone.
So take a look at these three stones.
Do they look different in size?
All three stones are one carat.
You might be thinking, how could that be?
It has to do with proportions.
So the three stones look different because they're proportioned differently.
Honestly, if I had to really just summarise cut for you
really, it's just about proportions.
Okay?
So here is a little homemade tool that we created
that we use to illustrate cut.
So let's say you have these three stones here.
They each weigh one carat. Each.
But as you can see, they are proportioned differently.
So there's two problems with that.
So take a look at the first one.
So if most of the weight is in the height of your diamond,
face up, it looks a lot smaller.
Now, that could be a scenario where you can have someone that gets engaged,
tells all her friends it's a one carat.
But one of her friends might be like, "Hey, mine's a 0.7.
Are you sure?
My diamond sure looks bigger than yours."
And it creates a whole kerfuffle. Right?
But it has nothing to do with size.
Now that's just the first part.
Now, this part, I think, is actually even worse.
Take a look at this.
So what you're going to see here is, you see how light goes into the stone,
but it leaks at the side.
What's happening there?
This is mostly physics and optics.
It's going to illustrate that most of the light
is leaking out of the side of the diamond.
It's not going to shine that well. Okay?
A lot of you will not notice this in a jewellery store
because it's really simple.
The lighting is super intense.
It's very strategic.
So everything looks crazy bright in that setting.
But you take a diamond like this and you open up the box at home,
you're going to notice it does not look as bright as it did back in the store.
Okay?
So I often say, think of jewellery store lighting
kind of the way that casinos are set up in Vegas.
You know, nothing is by accident.
I still want to tell my clients that
you want to stay away from the opposite extreme.
So some diamonds are purposely cut shallow
because it's a bit of a pancake effect.
From the top down,
it can make the stone look bigger.
But the problem here is this:
so you're going to notice here how the light leaks,
and it kind of leaks out the bottom of the stone.
And the optical effect that does is it kind of makes the diamond look
kind of like watery or like glass, like in the middle of the stone.
Now take a look.
When a diamond is cut to premium proportions,
light goes in the diamond, through the diamond,
back out the diamond, like it's literally on fire from within.
Nothing sparkles like a premium cut diamond.
So where do we end off when it comes to cut?
When it comes to colour and clarity, you can definitely personalise,
and you want to find out
the colour or the inclusion that's right for you.
But when it comes to cut, it's non-negotiable,
you have to go to the top.
So you want a perfectly cut diamond,
because cut is going to have a trickle-down effect on everything else.
Okay? So a perfectly cut diamond reflects more light.
A perfectly cut diamond will look whiter.
There's more white.
So you can actually have two diamonds that are the same colour,
but if one's perfectly cut, it'll usually appear whiter
than the other one that's an inferior cut.
A perfectly cut diamond is kind of like the Sun. Okay?
So it may even have imperfections, but it's kind of hard to see
what's in there because it's just reflecting so much.
Whereas if it's not shining so much,
you're much more able to easily see what's inside the stone.
So because of that, it honestly is a pretty clear-cut choice here.
So just make sure you don't settle for anything less than that.
Absolutely.