When it comes to diamond grading, the 4Cs—cut, color, clarity, and carat weight—are often treated as the foundation for evaluating a diamond. But when it comes to cut, not every grading system goes as far.
Traditional grading systems only assign a Cut Grade to round diamonds, while fancy shapes such as ovals, emerald cuts, cushions, pears, and radiant cuts are usually left without a formal cut assessment. VeraLume™ takes a different approach.
VeraLume applies a quantified Cut Grade to both round and fancy-shape diamonds, providing a more complete picture of how a diamond’s proportions and structure contribute to its overall performance.
Cut is about much more than how a diamond is shaped. It refers to the way a diamond’s proportions, facets, angles, and symmetry work together to influence its appearance.
A well-cut diamond can return light more effectively, creating brightness, contrast, and scintillation. Poor proportions can have the opposite effect, even when a diamond has excellent color and clarity grades.
For round diamonds, established proportion guidelines make cut evaluation relatively standardized. Fancy shapes are more complicated. Each shape has its own proportions and facet structure, meaning there is no single formula that works across every silhouette.
That complexity is one reason many grading systems do not assign a traditional cut grade to fancy shapes.
VeraLume believes they can, and should, be evaluated.
VeraLume assigns Cut Grades across a six-level scale:
Ideal+ → Ideal → Very Good → Good → Fair → Poor
For round diamonds, VeraLume uses stricter standards than conventional grading systems. For fancy shapes, the grading process goes beyond simply identifying the shape and recording its measurements.
Fancy-shape diamonds receive a quantified Cut Grade based on measurable proportions, facet angles, and structural balance.
Depending on the shape, cut evaluation can incorporate factors such as:
Together, these factors provide a more comprehensive way to assess how a fancy-shape diamond is constructed.
An oval is not cut like an emerald cut. A cushion is not cut like a pear. Each fancy shape has its own geometry, facet arrangement, and proportion considerations.
That means evaluating a fancy shape solely by its color and clarity—or leaving cut completely ungraded—can leave out an important part of the picture.
Two diamonds can have the same carat weight, color, and clarity grades while looking noticeably different because of how they were cut.
VeraLume's approach gives shoppers another measurable point of comparison.
Rather than simply asking, “What shape is this diamond?”, VeraLume helps answer a more important question:
“How well is this diamond cut?”
A meaningful cut evaluation should account for the way a diamond is actually constructed. That means looking at more than a single measurement or relying on standards developed primarily around one shape.
VeraLume's grading system evaluates round diamonds against stricter thresholds while extending quantified cut grading to fancy shapes. By considering proportions, angles, facet structure, symmetry, and other measurable characteristics, VeraLume provides a more complete assessment of a diamond's cut.
The result is a grading system designed to give shoppers more information, more context, and a clearer understanding of what they're actually buying.
Cut has always been one of the most important factors in how a diamond looks—but evaluating it shouldn't stop at round diamonds.
With VeraLume™, fancy shapes receive a quantified Cut Grade alongside round diamonds, bringing greater transparency to an area of diamond grading that has historically been harder to measure.
Because every diamond deserves to be evaluated for more than just what it weighs or how clear it is.
Its cut matters, too.
