HEART DIAMOND JEWELRY

Symmetry, ahead of everything else. Look at it face up and split it down the middle: the two lobes should mirror each other in width and in height, the cleft between them should be a clean sharp notch rather than a soft dip, and the point at the bottom should sit directly under that cleft. A heart that misses any of those reads wrong on a hand even at high color and clarity grades, and no setting hides it. That's why we look at a heart face up before we look at its grades, which is the opposite of how we buy most shapes.

Because they're difficult to cut and easy to get wrong. Every other outline forgives a little asymmetry; a heart doesn't, since your eye compares the two lobes the second it lands on the stone. Fewer get cut, and the ones that come out right cost more to buy in. That's the honest reason this page holds nine pieces rather than ninety. It's also why we make hearts to order: if you want one in a design that isn't listed here, contact us and we'll quote it.

Don't go much below half a carat. Under that the lobes and the cleft get hard to read at arm's length, the prongs cover part of the outline, and the stone starts to look like a round somebody sat on. A heart is the one shape where size and the shape itself are the same decision, so it's better to buy a well cut half carat heart than a bigger one that has lost its outline. In a pendant, where nothing sits on the girdle, you can go a little smaller than you can in a ring.

With a V-prong at the point, always. The point is the thinnest and most exposed part of the stone, and an ordinary prong leaves it open to the first door frame it meets; a V-prong wraps it and caps it. The rest is two prongs on the shoulders of the lobes, kept clear of the cleft, because a prong sitting in that notch closes it up and flattens the shape into a blob. That's the whole trick with hearts: hold the point, leave the cleft alone.

It can be, but in our experience a heart is bought more often as an anniversary or birthday piece than as an engagement stone, and there's nothing wrong with either. It's a shape with an opinion, so it suits somebody who already loves it rather than somebody who hasn't decided. If you're buying for a proposal and you aren't sure, a round or an oval is the safer bet. If the person you're buying for already wears hearts, the question has answered itself.