Welcome back to the Diamonds Hatton Garden blog where we bring you the latest updates from our Hatton Garden jewellers. As we move into the warming embrace of Spring, we continue with our on-going series that explores fancy cut diamond shapes and sizes. Today we look at one of the less popular, yet equally spectacular cuts, the heart shape. Often, when our clients are looking for diamond engagement rings in Hatton Garden.
Unique and instantly recognizable, a well-cut heart shaped diamond can look fantastic in a ring, pendant, diamond earrings or other piece of jewellery, all while offering better value for money than a similarly sized round diamond.
History of the heart shaped diamond
For over 500 years, the heart shape diamond engagement rings have been a popular choice for couples looking to celebrate their love across the world. Tracing its origins to European royalty, the heart shape captures the true essence of commitment, love and eternal partnership. A classic symbol of love, the heart shaped diamond’s origins can be traced back to the 15th century and European royalty – over time the shape has been eternally popular.
Why choose a heart shape diamond?
Often, when our clients are looking for diamond engagement rings in Hatton Garden, we are asked about the particular pros and cons of each diamond shaped. Following on from our guides to Emerald diamond engagement rings, cushion cut diamond engagement rings and radiant cut diamond engagement rings we outline the pros and cons of a heart shape diamond:
Pros
- Unique shape – not as common as other fancy cut shapes.
- Ultimate symbol of love – the heart has, for centuries, been the international symbol of love and devotion.
- Very trendy – on point and trendy.
Cons
- Price – can be more expensive as a cut.
- Clarity and colour – due to the shape of the cut, the diamond needs to generally be of a higher clarity and colour grading to ensure its brilliance and fire.
- Perfect cut – the symmetry and proportions need to be perfect to maintain the shape.
Recommended Cut & Proportions For Heart Cut Diamonds?
Due to their unique shape, when choosing a heart cut diamond it is important to ensure that your choice is in proportion. Unfortunately, judging the cut quality of a heart shaped diamond isn’t always as easy as reading its GIA certificate. Unlike round brilliant diamonds and other common cuts, a GIA certificate that comes with a heart shaped diamond doesn’t always go into detail on its cut quality. We recommend a length to width ratio of 1.00 meaning that the diamond is as long as it is wide. Anything outside of this can cause the diamond to look either too elongated or too chubby. Of course, choosing a ratio of 1.00 may not be possible but try to choose diamonds cut within the range of 0.90 to 1.10. What’s more, symmetry is incredibly important to consider when choosing a heart diamond. It’s vital that the two halves of the heart are identical and the heart’s cleft is distinct and even.
Heart Cut Diamond – Clarity – What to consider?
As with all diamonds, we recommend considering a diamond that is eye clean (meaning you can’t see any inclusions or other blemishes with your naked eye), then not choosing any clarity grade higher than this.
With heart shaped diamonds, any clarity grade of SI1 or better should provide a diamond that’s eye clean. Since the heart shape is a modified brilliant cut, small inclusions such as those found in most SI1 and VS2 diamonds are rarely visible to the naked eye.
Heart Cut Diamond – Colour – What to consider?t.
Heart shaped diamonds are a modified version of the round brilliant cut – the most popular of all diamond cuts. Due to the nature of the heart shape diamond, they reflect a lot of light, the colour of a heart shape diamond is harder to see because of its large table – unlike an Emerald or Asscher cut. With this in mind, it is worth pointing out that the higher colour grades (eg D) may not be the most economical choice for this shape. We recommend, with heart shape diamonds, basing you colour choice off of the setting that you choose.
For a white gold or platinum setting, we generally recommend choosing a diamond that has a colour grade of H or better. For a yellow or rose gold setting, a lower colour grade can work well such as J colour. Diamonds in these ranges have a slight yellow tint but appear clear when contrasted with metals like yellow and rose gold.
Heart Cut size chart
Due to the shape, we recommend choosing a heart shape that is above 0.50 carats to make it easier to discern the shape – once the stone is set it can be hard to distinguish the shape at smaller carat sizes. We have put together a mm to carat size table below for ease of reference:
Unsure what size heart cut diamond to choose? At Diamonds Hatton Garden our team of family-run jewellers have assisted generations of clients to find their perfect heart cut diamond engagement ring. Contact our team via harel@diamondshg.co.uk or call +44 7951 060238 for more information and to arrange your appointment. Alternatively, explore our selection of fancy coloured yellow diamonds for sale and if you are looking to buy fancy pink diamonds contact our team.