Pear shaped diamond engagement ring

Pear

The pear shaped diamond strikes a balance between the tradition of a round cut with contemporary styling to create an unusual stone that makes light dazzle and dance. Also called a teardrop for its single point and rounded end, the elegant and elongated pear diamond creates a subtle slimming effect on the fingers.

The diamond usually contains 58 facets, allowing for light to pass through it much the same way as a brilliant cut, but the pear often makes more of an impression because of its less common shape.

All this makes the pear a popular choice for various diamond jewellery, so shop our collection today.

What You Need to Know About Pear Diamonds

The pear, teardrop or pendeloque cut diamond is what’s called a modified brilliant cut. The signature silhouette of a pear diamond is instantly recognisable and known for its superb light return, giving it a much loved sparkle.

A shape of juxtapositions, pear diamonds can be worn with the tip pointing upwards or downwards on the finger. This sense of dynamism coupled with its association to the iconic brilliant cut has made the pear diamond a modern-day classic.

Despite its alluring attributes, the pear shape diamond remains relatively rare. In fact, at the time of writing, only 4% of GIA-certified diamonds available for sale globally were pear (47,429 out of 1,178,007 total diamonds).

History and Origins of Pear Diamonds

Despite a contemporary look and feel, the pear cut diamond has origins dating back to the mid-15th century in Flanders. In 1475, diamond cutter Lodewyk van Bercken used his pioneering polishing wheel to create the world's first pear shaped diamond.

When van Berquem first introduced the pear-shaped diamond, it was not particularly popular as many people were unhappy with the amount of rough diamond lost during the cutting process. But since then, it has been the engagement ring of choice for the likes of Victoria Beckham, Katherine Heigl, Ariana Grande and Sophie Turner.

Many professional cutters agree that the ideal ratio of length to width of a pear shaped diamond should be 1.5 : 1. This allows the diamond cutter to leave more carat weight in the rounded end of the diamond. However, it's taken some 500 years to get to this point of perfection.

A Guide to the Cut, Colour and Clarity of Pear Diamonds

Cut

The beauty, sparkle, and elegance of a pear shaped diamond can only come from the quality of its cut. Pear diamonds that are not well cut show dark bow-ties and can leak light instead of reflecting it.

Colour

Evaluating colour in pear diamonds is important because they can show more colours than other shapes, especially in its point. If you want an ice-white diamond, it is best to stick to the D-F colour range. You may be able to get away with grades lower than this, but a lot depends on the size of the stone.

Clarity

Most people will purchase a pear shaped diamond that is at least eye clean i.e. it doesn't show any inclusions to the naked eye. Because pears are effectively a combination of round and marquise cut diamonds, they hide blemishes rather well within their brilliance and sparkle.

Round Diamond Ring Settings

With its elegant outline that resembles a teardrop, pear shaped engagement rings have a unique appearance and look great on the hands when worn in the following settings:

Solitaire

A no-frills and highly affordable solitaire ring setting will deliver an understated beauty that is still comfortable enough for long durations of wear.

Halo

This setting offers a stunning all-round sparkle, accentuating the unique shape of the diamond with a number of smaller stones forming a ring around it.

Bezel

This setting will provide the most safety for the centre diamond by fully encircling the stone with a metal outer ring. Bezels are modern, minimalistic, yet practical.

Tips for Buying Pear Diamonds

A narrow, elongated pear shape is achieved with a higher ratio, while a more rounded, wider pear is achieved with a lower ratio.
While most agree that the ‘bow-tie’ some pear diamonds exhibit is part of their beauty, a severe effect is undesirable.
Make sure to always look for a symmetrical shape that maximises the measurements within your ideally cut diamond.

4C Of Diamond

Diamond Color

GIA developed the definitive diamond color scale or chart in the early 1950s, a time when there were a lot of different and subjective terms in the marketplace for describing a diamond’s color: white, blue white, AAAA, for example.

The GIA scale begins with the letter D, representing colorlessness, and continues with increasing presence of color to the letter Z, representing light yellow, light brown or light gray. The 23 color grades on the GIA Color Scale (or diamond color chart) are subdivided into five subcategories, which are: colorless (D-F); near colorless (G-J); faint (K-M); very light (N-R); and light (S-Z).

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Diamond Clarity

Diamond Clarity refers to the inclusions and blimishes.

To understand diamond clarity, we must first understand how diamonds are created. Natural diamonds are the result of carbon exposed to tremendous heat and pressure deep in the earth. This process can result in a variety of internal characteristics called ‘inclusions’ and external characteristics called ‘blemishes.’

Evaluating diamond clarity involves determining the number, size, relief, nature, and position of these characteristics, as well as how these affect the overall appearance of the stone. If you are trying to determine what is the best clarity for a diamond, remember that no diamond is perfectly pure. But the closer it comes to purity, the better its clarity

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Diamond Cut

Achieving the best cut for a diamond reflects in the stone’s final beauty and value.

Diamonds are renowned for their ability to transmit light and sparkle so intensely. We often think of a diamond’s cut as shape (round, heart, oval, marquise, pear), but what diamond cut actually does mean how well a diamond’s facets interact with light. Precise artistry and workmanship are required to fashion a stone so its proportions, symmetry and polish deliver the magnificent return of light only possible in a diamond.

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Carat Weight

Diamond carat weight measures Diamonds Apparent size.

To put it simply, diamond carat weight measures how much a diamond weighs.

A metric “carat” is defined as 200 milligrams. Each carat is subdivided into 100 ‘points.’ This allows very precise measurements to the hundredth decimal place. A jeweler may describe the weight of a diamond below one carat by its ‘points’ alone. For instance, the jeweler may refer to a diamond that weighs 0.25 carats as a ‘twenty-five pointer.’ Diamond weights greater than one carat are expressed in carats and decimals. A 1.08 carat stone would be described as ‘one point oh eight carats.’

All else being equal, diamond price increases with diamond carat weight because larger diamonds are rarer and more desirable. However, two diamonds of equal carat weight can have very different values (and prices) depending on three other factors of the diamond 4Cs : Color , Clarity , and Cut

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