Frosted versus Polished Girdles

The "girdle" is our trade's terminology for the outside edge of a diamond. If you've ever wondered whether a fine diamond should have a frosted or polished girdle, I would ask... how romantic is it to focus on a girdle? Doesn't personality count for anything these days?

Just kidding, but I have a slight aversion to even using the term girdle, especially when applied to something as gorgeous as the world's most perfectly cut diamonds. It seems so... impolite.

Anyway, my short answer is that faceted girdles and matte-finished girdles are both perfectly appropriate when finishing diamonds.

Diamond cutting, especially at it's highest level, is still an art form. The parameters are extremely narrow at the upper echelons of the diamond quality pyramid, but the precise application of techniques is left up to the cutter to decide. This ensures that each stone will ultimately display its optimum beauty.

Some cutters prefer faceted girdles better, some don't. Some consumers prefer faceted girdles better, some don't. But the truth is that some diamond crystals are more striking with faceted girdles and some aren't.

My own preference is a smooth girdle. My reason is very simple, it concerns face-up appearance. Smooth girdles actually make a diamond round - faceted girdles make a diamond look round. No matter how many facets you put on the circumference it is still pixel-ated.

Either way, the girdle itself should not be visible when the diamond is viewed in the face-up position.

There are other considerations as well.

It can be argued that a frosted girdle imparts "life" to an otherwise cold looking high color diamond. If a diamond has any trace of brown in it, then that matte-finished edge may appear "dirty". And, an off-color diamond with a thick frosted girdle will definitely look darker.

Sometimes a girdle simply must be faceted to prevent slight 'bearding" that may remain despite careful rounding. A downside to a faceted girdle is that it creates a continuous "window" around the diamond that looks like a line. Then again, some customers flat-out prefer the "completely finished" look of a faceted girdle.

From a cutters point of view, I am here to tell you that faceting a girdle is a royal pain in the neck. Think about it, anywhere between 64 and 96 extra itty-bitty little tiny facets have to be cut, polished, aligned and symmetrical... all at no extra cost!!!

What would you do?

And, don't even get me started on culets.

Solid Performance...

“Performance” is the newest buzz word in diamonds. Literally, it's what the diamond is supposed to do. It should come as no surprise that it already means different things to different people.

Does performance matter to you? It certainly should. To me, that’s what it’s all about.

Cutters and connoisseurs have been trying to quantify diamond beauty for a long time. It's not easy - perhaps next to impossible. Quantity and Quality don't generally share the same axis on any of the graphs I've ever seen.

After years of research, the GIA developed a very complex set of metrics to simply define the building blocks of beauty in a round brilliant diamond – brilliance, dispersion, and scintillation. The AGS continues to advance their performance-based methodology by also modelling the variants of beauty in fancy-shaped diamonds.

Both of these labs independently discovered that any given diamond’s “performance” is not constant. Significant changes occur just by moving the diamond or by subtle shifts in lighting conditions. Even the pupil-size, shoulder-width and clothing of the viewer can make a noticeable difference.

Not to be out-done, entrepreneurs have already brought to market various counter-top machines designed to analyze and compare diamonds based on their “performance”. Computerized snapshots delivered by these sales tools are still subject to interpretation. Despite their obvious g-wiz factor, there is honest disagreement over the validity of each tools ability to accurately define diamond beauty.

Lucky for us that beauty isn't purely scientific – it’s still an expression of art. Mere words and pictures may never convey the full magic of diamonds. To prove it to yourself, simply go look at some diamonds!!!

You will discover that diamonds do indeed “perform”! They are natural light shows. The best cut diamonds are dynamic works of art – literally 3D motion pictures. They are marvels to behold.

When you put such a diamond on its proper stage – adorning her – it will brighten up her life. It will dance in every light! It will twinkle like a little star! It will radiate all the colors of the rainbow! If you open up your heart and mind, it may even sing your special song of love!

The Colors of Light...

I’ve been traveling a lot lately, from sea to shining sea. So, this morning I had the good fortune of waking up to a gorgeous mountain view of Honolulu complete with a world-class rainbow.

Slowly emerging from a drowsy jet lag, I was reminded to get back to my favorite part of the story about the colors associated with diamonds – the seven visible colors of the light spectrum – our good friend Roy G. Biv from grade school – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

As I said, the 4C’s tell us what a diamond is. What is less obvious is what a diamond does.

Until very recently, certificates and grading reports only described the physical features of a diamond. The advent of new “performance” based diamond quality analysis now tells us the direct benefits of certain cutting styles and standards.

The reason we cut diamonds at all is to enhance their beauty – literally to make them shine.

In antiquity if a rough crystal was a certain shape, the cutter delivered a finished diamond of roughly (sic) the same shape. It was more shiny and smaller after being cut and polished, but his goal was always to keep it as big as possible.

We can only imagine the penalties suffered by cutters who delivered diamonds that were deemed too small, because even the most important diamonds were cut by unheralded masters who remain un-named to this day.

It is no small irony that the world’s museums are full of examples of diamonds cut expressly to “save weight” – domes, egg-shapes, flats, lozenges, cushions, and the like. Very few round diamonds, that’s for sure.

Today we know that round diamonds produce the best results in terms of light performance, quite simply because rounds have the highest level of symmetry. It’s a physical fact that all diamond shapes with lesser degrees of symmetry will “leak” some precious light.

Yet, the battle still rages over whether or not to compromise beauty for extra weight. Quality versus quantity. Its an age-old dichotomy.

What is meant by light performance? I'm not just talking about light return. But, I'm also not suggesting that it's rocket science either. Simply put, in order to be beautiful a diamond must be bright and colorful and sparkle like crazy. More importantly, these three elements of beauty should be well-balanced.

Like most elegant equations it's relatively simple, but like most mathematics it can get pretty tricky. If a diamond is too bright and sparkly, it will not be colorful enough. If it is too colorful it will not be bright enough. If it is too sparkly it will become fuzzy.

We’ve been taught to think diamonds should be white (as in body color) and bright and sparkly. What happens when we see colors of the rainbow? We are led to believe the diamond looks too dark. But, we now know that the best cut diamonds have the ability to transform clear light into its component parts - brightness, sparkle and a blazing display of rainbows.

This brings me to,

Rule #2 - In order to appreciate the full value of a diamond, you have to know what to look for.