An Emerald Cut Has About the Same Number of Facets as a Round Brilliant, Not Fewer

A common belief, including one you'll see repeated by people who should know better, is that step cuts like the emerald and Asscher have far fewer facets than a sparkly round brilliant. That's the intuitive explanation for why they flash less. It's also wrong.

A standard round brilliant has 57 or 58 facets. A standard emerald cut is commonly built with 57 or 58 as well. The counts are essentially the same. What differs is not how many facets there are but how big they are and how they're arranged.

A brilliant cut covers the stone in numerous small facets, kite-shaped and triangular, angled to bounce light back at your eye from every direction. That's what produces the busy, sparkly return people associate with a round. A step cut uses a smaller number of larger, broad facets running in parallel rows, like steps, around a rectangular outline. Same rough count, completely different geometry.

Those long open facets are why an emerald cut behaves the way it does. Instead of scattering light into many small sparkles, it reflects it in broad flashes, an effect gemologists call the "hall of mirrors." It's a quieter, more transparent look, and it's a deliberate design, not a consequence of having skimped on facets.

There's a practical takeaway. Because those facets are large and open, an emerald cut hides very little. Inclusions and body color that a busy round would camouflage are visible straight down through the table. That's why the standard advice is to go higher in clarity and color for an emerald cut than you would for a round, roughly VS clarity and G color or better as a starting point.

So step cuts don't sparkle less because they have fewer facets. They sparkle differently because the facets they have are bigger and arranged to show you the stone, not to hide it.

Sources: GIA.