What is the difference between a custom cut gem as opposed to a commercial factory cut?
There are many benefits to buying Tara's gems, firstly she chooses the best material available from Artisan Miners, Gem fossikers and hunters which can be traced back to their origins, because this is done on a small scale it is sustainable and respectful to the environment, which in turn supports their communities, caring is her core, you can feel good in knowing that it benefits others worldwide.
Good Craftsmanship vs Bad Craftsmanship
A lot of skill and judgement goes into creating a gem to get optimal performance, sparkle and colour, Tara's care for precision and meticulous attention to detail of sharp meet points, straight lines, excellent symmetry and correctly calculated angles all exceptionally finished with 100k diamond grit polish give her stones an overall superior quality of rare beauty compared to your ordinary gem, the cut and polish affects the final colour of a gem, the better the quality of craftmanship the better colour, which is the most important feature of a gemstone.
Unfortunately, the market is saturated with badly polished and scratched stones of poor symmetry, 13K diamond grit being the standard, cut too shallow at the wrong angles causing a window making the stone look lifeless. On top of this a chipped thin crooked girdle which is harder to set for a jeweller, costing them time, time is money.
Poor stone vs Great stone
The gem here shows a window clearly evident as you can read through it, this 'fish eye' effect creates a dull blank centre, it's pavilion has a big belly where all the carat weight is, looking from the top visually the there is no benefit to the size, it sounds like a big stone when actually it's not, these stones are speed cut on primitive equipment with no consideration for correct angles or symmetry, they are cut for yield and not beauty, a false economy.
See below its re-cut transformation.
The Perfected Gem
So this was the re-cut of a colourless tourmaline (above) it had a huge window, the carat fat was removed in the pavilion to modernise it and add brilliance which when a stone is colourless brilliance is needed so show it’s true beauty.
You shouldn’t be able to look through a gemstone if it’s properly cut with the correct angles for maximum brilliance and scintillation.
By removing the carat fat from the pavilion it’s completely transformed the original stone, as you can now see there is no 'window', with a 100k diamond grit polish and all facets meeting the overall effect is superior to the orignal, it has turned a dull, lifeless stone into one that sparkles with fire and brilliance, and in turn is more valuable and more pleasing to look at.
See the video below of its transformation.