Lab-Grown Cushion Cut Diamonds

The cushion is the softest of the classic outlines — a square or slightly rectangular stone with rounded corners — and it comes in two very different cutting styles that no grading report separates. Chunky facets give broad, slow flashes and a vintage character. Crushed ice gives a fine, busy sparkle. Neither is better; they are simply not the same stone, and the price difference between two cushions on the same report line is often just this.

In lab-grown, colour costs so little that the usual cushion strategy stops making sense. On a mined cushion the standard advice is to drop to I or J, because the shape hides warmth well and the saving is large. Here the saving is small, so buy F or G and let the stone be unambiguously white in any metal.

Put the money you would have spent on colour into spread instead. Cushions are frequently cut deep, and a deep one wears smaller than its weight: two 2.00ct cushions can differ by half a millimetre across the top. Compare the measurements, not the carat.

Then watch the 360° video to see which cutting style you are actually looking at.