The DoveEggs Empress Cut: What It Is and Why Customers Named It
September 16, 2026The DoveEggs Empress Cut: What It Is and Why Customers Named It
Our customers named this one. When we designed an elongated cushion of our own and needed a name for it, we put the decision to a vote, and the people who buy from us chose "Empress." That is not a marketing story we reverse-engineered later. The name came from the people who would wear the ring, and it stuck.
We are telling you that first because it is the one thing about this cut nobody else can copy. Plenty of jewelers hang the word "Empress" on wholly different shapes. Ours is a specific, exclusive cut with a name its own buyers picked, and everything worth knowing about it follows from what it actually is.
What the Empress Cut actually is
The DoveEggs Empress Cut is a proprietary elongated cushion modified brilliant, which is a mouthful, so let us take it apart. A cushion is a squared outline with soft, rounded corners, the pillow shape that sits partway between a round and a princess. "Elongated" means it is stretched longer than it is wide, with a length-to-width that runs roughly 1.4 to 1.8 depending on the stone. "Modified brilliant" is the faceting: a brilliant cut with an extra row of facets added below the girdle.
That last word is the one that decides how the stone behaves. A brilliant-faceted cushion is built to sparkle, so an empress cut throws warm brilliance and fire, the small glittering scatter the trade calls a crushed-ice look. It is the opposite of a step cut like an emerald, where long parallel facets open up a clear "window" into the stone and give you slow, subtle flashes. If you have been picturing that quiet, glassy emerald-cut look, reset it. The empress cut is a sparkle cut, not a window.
On the certificate the shape is labeled "Cushion Modified Brilliant," which is simply the grading language for what we just described: a cushion outline with the extra brilliant faceting that makes it glitter. It is our own design, not a name pasted onto a generic stone, and it sits alongside our other signature cuts like the Astro Cut, another proprietary DovEggs moissanite cut , each built to do a different thing with light. You can see the outline, the faceting, and the size range on the Empress cut moissanite loose stone page , where the stone is shown set and shot from several angles.
Why the elongated shape flatters your hand
The Empress Cut's elongated outline lengthens the finger and reads larger for its carat weight. Item #R781 — 5ct (9x11mm) Empress Cut GHI Color Moissanite.
An empress cut spreads the same weight over a longer outline than a round or square stone, so it tends to look larger for its carat weight. There is more surface facing up, and the eye reads that extra length as size. It is a quiet way to get presence on the hand without paying for more stone.
The shape does something for the hand, too. That long axis draws the eye down the finger rather than across it, which lengthens and slims the look of the hand it sits on. The more stretched the outline, the stronger that effect, and an empress cut leans into it with its long silhouette while keeping the soft, rounded cushion corners that read a little warmer and more vintage than a hard-edged shape.
The sparkle is warm rather than icy. That is a design choice we made and a read our customers consistently give us back, not a lab measurement, so take it as intent and feedback rather than a number on a report. If you have only seen the cut in a still photo, know that a photo freezes one instant of light and undersells a brilliant cut, which lives in motion. Move it under a lamp and the whole face lights up in fine, quick flashes at once, which is exactly what a modified brilliant is designed to do.
Whether it holds up to everyday wear
Item #R781 — 5ct (9x11mm) Empress Cut GHI Color Moissanite in a bezel solitaire setting, shown on the hand. Rounded corners mean no sharp points to snag or chip.
Rounded corners are the quiet durability win here. A cushion has no sharp points, and sharp points are exactly where pointed cuts get into trouble: a princess cut's corners can snag and are the first place the stone is likely to chip, which is why those corners always have to be shielded by prongs. An empress cut has nothing to shield. Its soft corners give daily wear far less to catch on, whether that is a sweater sleeve, a car door, or the inside of a pocket.
The material backs that up. In moissanite, the empress cut is silicon carbide measuring 9.25 on the Mohs hardness scale, which sits just under diamond and comfortably above everything else people wear on a hand every day. Between a hard stone and a shape with no vulnerable corners, this is a cut built for a ring you actually wear, not one you baby between the box and the occasion.
If you want to see it set rather than loose, the DovEggs Empress Cut engagement ring collection shows it in finished rings from several angles, which tells you more about how it wears than any spec can.
Is it a diamond, and can I get one?
Let us be precise, because the market is not. The empress cut you have been looking at is moissanite, its own gemstone, silicon carbide, not a diamond. A lot of people type "empress cut diamond" using "diamond" loosely to mean any bright, clear stone, and that is fine, but we will not blur the line: our moissanite empress reads bright and fiery to the eye without being a diamond, and we are not going to tell you otherwise.
Modified Elongated Cushion lab-grown diamond — the same exclusive shape in diamond material, graded by shape. Left: face-up view. Right: pavilion view.
The same exclusive silhouette in two materials. Left: Modified Elongated Cushion lab-grown diamond. Right: DovEggs Empress Cut moissanite.
If you genuinely want this exact cut as a lab-grown diamond, you can have it. The same exclusive shape exists on the diamond side, where we classify it by shape as a Modified Elongated Cushion, and you will find it in the Modified Elongated Cushion lab-grown diamond collection . Same silhouette, same rounded corners, different material and a different name to match how each is graded.
How the Empress Cut is graded
NGIC certification documents the Empress Cut as a Cushion Modified Brilliant.
Our exclusive cuts are graded by NGIC rather than by the labs that grade standard stones. Because the empress cut is a proprietary DovEggs design, it goes through NGIC, while a standard lab-grown diamond runs through IGI. That is a paper-trail difference, not a quality one, and it will not change anything you see on your hand.
We call the cut exclusive and proprietary, and we mean it in the honest sense: this specific design is ours. What we do not claim is ownership of two English words. The generic phrase "empress cut" is not patented or trademarked, and other jewelers use it for unrelated shapes. What is ours is the DovEggs Empress Cut itself, the shape and its faceting. If the grading side is new to you, the basics of how DovEggs grades cut, color, and size covers the groundwork this piece skips.
Which version is right for you
Start with the material, because that decides your path. If you want the branded Empress with its warm brilliance and its strong value case, that is the moissanite, and the loose stone or a finished ring from the Empress collection is where to look. If your heart is set on a lab-grown diamond in this exact silhouette, ask for the Modified Elongated Cushion instead, and you will end up with the same cut named for how it is graded.
Either way, the shape does the same work: it stretches the outline to look larger for its weight, lengthens the hand, sparkles warm instead of windowing like a step cut, and keeps soft corners that stand up to daily wear. The name was the part our customers chose. What it does for your hand is the part you get to decide on.
Frequently asked questions about the Empress Cut
Q: What is the DovEggs Empress Cut?
A: The DovEggs Empress Cut is a proprietary elongated cushion modified brilliant cut, exclusive to DovEggs. Its name was chosen by DovEggs customers through a vote. The cushion outline has soft rounded corners and brilliant faceting, so it reads bright and fiery rather than like a step cut.
Q: Is the Empress Cut a diamond?
A: The Empress Cut is moissanite, its own gemstone (silicon carbide), not a diamond. The same exclusive cut is also offered in lab-grown diamond, where it is classified by shape as a Modified Elongated Cushion.
Q: Does the Empress Cut sparkle a lot?
A: Yes. Because it is a brilliant-faceted cushion rather than a step cut, the Empress Cut throws warm brilliance and fire, the fine glittering scatter often called a crushed-ice look, instead of the clear open window of an emerald cut.
Q: Is the Empress Cut durable for everyday wear?
A: Its rounded cushion corners have no sharp points to snag or chip, unlike a princess cut. In moissanite it measures 9.25 on the Mohs hardness scale, just under diamond, which makes it well suited to a ring worn every day.