Formerly, it was just diamonds were a girl’s best friend. Now, there is a new spin to the old proverb. “Lab-grown diamonds” are a girl’s new best friend. While that sets the tone of the article, there is still a lot to learn about man-made gemstones to understand the answer fully. Lab-grown diamonds are the new fad that’s going around the block. Businesses everywhere are dealing in them and buyers worldwide are buying them. Now that has put many traditional-minded buyers in doubt. Are man-made gems really worth considering?
That question can be answered satisfactorily only through a series of related questions. So here goes:
How Are They Made?
Apparently, this is the question that is the cradle of all confusion surrounding man-made gemstones. Owing to incomplete information, people are quick to conclude that lab grown diamonds are not even real stones. Wrong. Man-made diamonds are about as real and natural as their mined counterparts. In fact, the process in which they are made is a dead ringer for the process in which they form under the earth. In laboratories, these diamonds are produced through intense heating and pressure. In the process, chunks of carbon covert into brilliant diamond crystals.
The only thing worth mentioning here is that the lab processes have an edge over the natural ones in terms of time. What takes a million years to form naturally takes months, even weeks in controlled environment.
What Is the Difference between a Lab-Made and Natural Diamond?
Chemically, the two are identical. As for the aesthetics, it’s beyond the skills of an average person to tell the two apart. It takes not just a pair of trained eyes, but also sophisticated magnifying instruments to determine which is which.
The main distinction lies not in the composition, or aesthetics, but in the perfection. Lab-made gems are way too perfect as opposed to natural stones. Natural diamonds have inclusions and blemishes that are a fallout of the natural crystallization process. Gases and minerals get mixed up in the crystal leaving traces inside the stone which the industry calls feathers, clouds, inclusions, etc. The diamond producing labs have been able to do away with these imperfections through a carefully monitored process that uses the same heat and pressure, but not the impurities.
So, to conclude, there aren’t any concerning differences between a man-made and a mined diamond that a buyer needs to concern himself/herself with.
How Affordable Are They?
Pay attention buyers for it gets interesting from here on out. While natural diamonds sell for inflated price, and you can’t really blame the companies considering the cost of mining, advertisement, overheads and whatnot, lab-made gems sell for much less. Since rarity is no longer a concern for these producers, they charge far less for their diamonds than the mining companies. In fact, lab-made diamonds are sold for a fraction of the price of mined diamonds, and that’s the same everywhere.
To top that, these diamonds are many times brighter and even more perfect than the others. So, for the price of a Flawless natural diamond, you can buy a handful of equally perfect-looking lab-grown diamonds. Now that’s a deal worth considering.
Are They Sustainable?
This is debatable, topic experts everywhere are cultivating to arrive at a definite conclusion. Of course, producing synthetic diamonds does not involve mining and knowing how damaging mining is to some geologies, it is sustainable, or so to speak environment-friendly. Also, it does not involve burning of massive amounts of fossil fuel which has high carbon footprints. So, if environment is a concern, you can buy it in a clean conscience.
As the demand for diamonds continue to rise, the supply of mined diamonds is likely to dwindle in the near future. In those years, lab-grown diamonds are going to be our only sustainable choice. Experts say that these diamonds are the answer to the widening rift between the demand and supply situation in the diamond industry.
What’s more, these diamonds are vegan, which natural diamonds are unlikely to be. So, it’s safe to say that producing lab-made diamonds entail little to no hazards on the environment. In that way, it definitely is a cleaner choice.
What about Guilt-Free and Problem-Free?
Here is the hottest issue of the industry at the moment that every buyer is up in arms about, and why not? For long diamonds have paid for the illegal operations of violent gangs and warring militia. It’s time that is stopped for good. The governments of countries worldwide are doing things to keep blood diamonds out of the market. But that’s not enough. Despite all the checking and screening, thousands of problem diamond make their way into the market every year. The proceeds from those go straight to fund civil wars in conflict regions. That said, man-made diamonds are the way to go if you want to buy guilt-free diamonds. These diamonds have guaranteed origins and therefore do not share