Heart Shaped Diamonds

Heart Shaped Pink Diamond

Weight Retention
The most usual reason for a diamond cutter to fashion a fancy shape rather than a circular one, is to retain the maximum weight. If the cutter owns a rough stone which will retain much more weight as a heart shape than as a round, only then he is likely to choose the heart shape. We have already stated that heart shapes are not as brilliant as round diamonds of the same quality. We would advise all our viewers to read our round brilliant cut page first, and perhaps some of our other pages about cut and proportion. Even the best proportioned heart shape will not be quite as sparkly as the best round brilliant. Logically and mathematically, a non-round diamond cannot be perfectly proportioned. Badly proportioned pears will look worse than a correspondingly badly proportioned round stone.

Bow Tie Effect
Heart shaped diamonds can suffer from the "bow-tie" effect, although not as badly as marquise shaped. Although diamond cutters try hard to avoid or minimise this effect, it is almost impossible to avoid completely. It manifests itself as a dark area across the middle of the width of the diamond which looks just like a black or darkly coloured bow tie, hence the name. As it happens, both of the heart shaped diamonds shown on this page are pretty well proportioned, and the bow tie effect cannot be seen very clearly. We will try to find a better example.
Needless to say, when acquiring a heart shape diamond, if you have a choice, try to find one without too much of a bow tie.

Is Your Heart in Good Shape?
No, this isn't a medical question, but heart shape diamonds are very variable in shape. They can be tall and thin, short and squat, or quite square. By square, we mean that the height and width or similar. Apart from the fact that tall thin hearts would look rather odd, there are two other considerations when looking at the outline of heart shaped diamonds, one is personal preference because obviously some shapes will appeal more to one individual than others, the other factor is brilliance. As with other diamond shapes, it is important to ensure that the diamond you get looks bright, attractive and sparkling. If it is cut to poor proportions, it may "leak" light and fail to sparkle as brightly as it should.

Prices
The price per carat of fancy shaped diamonds is almost always less than the price for similar quality round brilliant cuts, although some jewellers will try to charge more if they can get away with it! In fairness, though we should add that because of the greater variability of heart shapes compared with rounds, it is more difficult to sort and source matching pairs, sets or "layouts" of heart shapes. This sorting and sorting is more labour intensive, and does add to the cost of the diamonds. It still remains true that larger, better quality individual heart shaped diamonds should normally cost about 10 to 20% below the cost of equivalent quality round brilliants.

Favourite Shape
If your favourite shape of diamond is a heart shape, please don't allow our comments to deter you from your dream diamond, we are simply trying to make you aware of the differences. Also the heart shaped outline can look better than a circular one in items such as pendants and drop ear-rings. Another good use for heart shapes is as shoulder stones for a major centre stone, or in a cluster around a larger diamond.

What No Vanilla?
When we came to create this page, our best heart shape diamond photograph was of a pink coloured diamond, as you can see. We will try to add a white (colourless) heart shape diamond image when we get time.

Coloured Diamonds
You cannot help but notice that our photograph is of a fancy pink diamond. Because the primary attraction is its bright pink colour, rather than its brilliance, the fact that it is heart shape may have enhanced rather than detracted from its beauty. Similar considerations would apply to most fancy coloured diamonds.

More About Cut & Shape of Diamonds