Thinking about lab grown diamonds? This post will give you the most comprehensive deep dive into laboratory grown diamonds, giving you more knowledge than 90% of the sales people out there and making sure you are getting the best quality diamond.
Having been in the diamond industry for over 25 years, working as a diamond grader, gemmologist and valuer and owner of a diamond boutique, I can honestly say I really love diamonds. I am often asked questions about jewellery and gems, asking me to pick my favourite cut, colour, or stone and at the end of the day, I keep coming back to a diamond.
The questions I get asked more than most right now are all about lab grown diamonds; what exactly are they? Are they all created the same? Can you tell the difference, and most importantly should I consider buying one?
For me, whether it is a lab grown diamond or a mined diamond, I love both and either can be perfect for you depending on what you are looking for in your diamond. My wife wears both mined and lab grown diamonds and the origin for the stone has not been a contributing factor for me, but I understand for some it may be.
I am a big believer in arming yourself with all the correct information before deciding between lab grown diamond and mined diamonds and where to buy from. With the size of the diamond industry combined with the extensive amount of information on the internet, you might be finding it difficult to decipher what is correct and what is misinformation on created diamonds without the marketing agenda and spin.
The first time I came across a lab grown diamond, I must confess I was quite sceptical. One of my suppliers had sent me an amazing two-carat diamond to look at. As I normally do, I checked the diamond for myself so I could grade it based on my own valuation. I looked at the colour, clarity, and the precision of the cutting, and was soon satisfied that I was indeed looking at an amazing diamond – one that would make someone incredibly happy to wear for the next 50 years. I then looked at the paperwork, and the first thing that struck me was the price. It was significantly less than what I was expecting considering the quality of the stone. I quickly rang the supplier to see if the pricing was a mistake and discovered it wasn’t. It was just the mining cost making the significant price difference.
Can an expert tell the difference? Can you?
I recently put myself to the test, to check whether I could tell the difference between a lab grown diamond and a mined diamond. I sat down, a little cocky, as the gentleman across the table from me presented 10 stones. I simply had to sort these into lab grown diamonds and mined diamonds.
I started as I always do, picking up my loop and tweezers, as familiar to me as a pair of shoes that fit perfectly. Picking up the first diamond, I noticed a dark black inclusion on the edge of the stone. This looked like a familiar graphite inclusion that I had seen 1000 times of more. Easy first one, I thought. This obviously belongs in the mined diamond group. The second diamond I picked up was completely clean, so I placed the stone back on the table, gave it a wipe with the special microfibre diamond cloth, rotated the stone and picked it up again. (A widespread practice when assessing diamonds is to rotate the stone to make sure the orientation of the inclusion isn’t hiding due to the angles of light bouncing around inside the stone.) Still nothing? Well, this must be either an incredibly clean diamond, or it must be a lab growndiamond, I thought. So, it went in the created diamond category.
Over and over, I went through this exercise until all ten stones were sorted. Announcing I was finished to my counterpart across the table with a little smile on my face, he asked me if I was sure and happy with my selection. To which my confidence slipped a little and I nervously replied, ‘Well, let me just have one quicker look.’ Having satisfied my curiosity, I decided I was happy with my selection. ‘How did I do?’ I (still somewhat nervously) asked him.
The gentleman now seemed to know something he was reluctant to share. ‘Well, the thing is,’ he said somewhat apprehensively, ‘they are all lab grown diamonds.’
What? How is this possible? I thought.
Realising that the game was up, I decided to have a look at all the diamonds I had marked as mined, scrutinising them from every angle. I had to conclude that, without sophisticate laboratory equipment, there really was no way to tell the difference between lab grown diamonds and mined diamonds, even with a 10x times magnifying lens.
At first, I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or upset that I couldn’t tell the difference; however, what I ended up taking from the experience was that my original prejudices around the origin of creation had absolutely nothing to do with how the diamond presented and performed.
Are created diamonds better?
How could something that is created in a lab be better than something produced ‘naturally’? Well, lab grown diamonds being as good as, or better, than mined diamonds may not be as far-fetched as you think. After all, advancements in technology are happening every year, and things were previously thought impossible are now normal. We are talking about travelling to Mars and 3D printing meat, just to name but a few such innovations. So why not creating high-quality diamonds?
Aren’t all diamonds created?
When you really think about it, all diamonds are created. Some are just created by the earth, and some are created by humans. The process used to make diamonds today is essentially replicating the conditions that occurred below the ground over millions of years.
Mined diamonds are a billion years old, whereas a lab grown diamond can be anywhere from one to three months old, depending on the size and quality of the stone.
Apart from the time factor, the only real difference is that one diamond is made below the ground and the other is made above the ground. Essentially, only the origin is different for each.
Natural versus synthetic
Interestingly, in 2020 the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) removed the word ‘natural’ when talking about a mined diamond. They argued it was impossible to have a synthetic element. We are either breathing oxygen right now or we aren’t, for example. The same goes with the carbon in a diamond – it is either carbon or it isn’t. A synthetic carbon simply doesn’t exist.
The other interesting point here is that most people can tell from a considerable distance that other gemstones are the created versions – for example, synthetic sapphires look like blue glass. There is something quite distinctive about most created gemstones, and they just look fake or unnatural – and so are significantly cheaper. A lab grown diamond, on the other hand, is indistinguishable from a mined diamond.
Simulate versus created
As opposed to a lab grown diamond, a simulate is something that is like but not the same thing. In terms of diamond simulates, this refers to stones such as a cubic zirconia (CZ). At a distant glance, they might look the same as a diamond, but they don’t have the same optical or hardness properties.
What about the negatives?
As I’ve discussed, lab grown diamonds can be of such high quality it’s almost impossible to separate them from mined diamonds. And you can buy this high quality at a fraction of the price of mined diamonds. So, you might be reading this and thinking that this sounds like the best thing since sliced bread. A bigger and better-quality diamond, for less? What’s the catch?
The main possible negatives relate to resale value for the diamond and whether it will hold its value.
Resale value
The truth is every diamond in the world is graded and valued for exactly what it is. If you pay $5000 less for a lab grown diamond now, for example, then it will be consistently worth at least $5000 less than the value of a comparable mined diamond.
Holding its value over time
I am not sure about you, but my crystal ball is on the fritz now, and I think anyone who tells you they know what the future holds should be treated with caution. What I do know is that all diamonds – mined and lab grown – move up and down in price. Many contributing factors influence the price of diamonds globally. When I recently checked the wholesale price of the diamond I purchased for my wife’s engagement ring, it had fallen $3000. (Of course, as I have mentioned, this is totally irrelevant to me, because I don’t plan on selling it.)
While it might be true that products often get cheaper as technology advances, prices are still governed by the age-old forces of supply and demand. Late in 2020, for example, we did see a drop in the prices of laboratory-created diamonds. However, 2021 has seen not only a stabilising of the market rates of created diamonds, but also signs of an increase in rates as demand outstrips supply.
These shortages are being exasperated further by delays in more reactors being built, which is placing further pressures on supply.
Looking at the diverse types of lab grown diamonds
Before I get any further into the features, benefits, pros, and cons of created, understanding the two distinct types of created diamonds currently on the market is important. Check out this video that shows the two growing procesess
High pressure and high temperature lab grown diamonds
HPHT, or high pressure and high temperature, lab grown diamonds, were first invented in 1954 by General Electric and were predominately used for industrial purposes.
In this process, the diamond is created from a ‘carbon seed,’ with typically a material such as graphite being used. Here they are essentially extracting the carbon from a solvent metal, under the required conditions of pressure (over 1.5 million pounds) and high heat (over 1400 °C) to grow the diamond. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that gem-quality diamonds started to be produced.
While HPHT diamonds are created using several different processes, many of these diamonds exhibit yellowish and brownish tints due to their exposure to nitrogen when being formed. They can also contain metal-type inclusions such as iron, nickel, and cobalt. These types of inclusions area-typical in mined diamonds, and so are often something that allows experts to identify them as lab grown.
HPHT is also used as a post-growth treatment to turn diamonds that have a brownish or yellowish tint into ones in the colourless range of diamonds (that is, in the D to F range; refer to chapter 7). While the colour change produced post-growth using HPHT is permanent, it is important to be aware if the treatment has been used.
One distinguishing feature of HPHT grown diamonds is that they will often have fluorescence, and may not show up on a diamond tester as a diamond in all cases
The time frame for making a HPHT diamond is around one to two months.
Chemical vapour deposition
CVD, or chemical vapour deposition, created diamonds are different from HPHT diamonds in that the seed is an actual diamond, and the diamond is grown from a hydrocarbon gas mixture. This process is a more recent method for creating diamonds and has been used since the 1980s.
Considerably less heat (800 °C) is used, along with myriad other techniques to cause the carbon-rich gas to bond with the diamond seed crystal to allow it to grow.
The diamonds created during the CVD growth method are near colourless, attributed to the vacuum chamber in which they are created. This chamber limits the exposure to nitrogen and boron. When combined with what’s known as a Type 1a, or type 2a, diamond seed, this leads to a whiter finished diamond. (Type 1a diamonds are purely, or almost purely, carbon, and are the purest and most valuable of all – see the section ‘Under the microscope’ for more.) This means that the original creators found the most perfect diamond they could in nature and used this for the seed crystal, from which all the subsequent diamonds were created.
Another advantage of a CVD created diamond is that it will never show fluorescence – refer to chapter 7 for more on how diamonds with low or no fluorescence are graded.
In this process, the diamond seed is placed in the reactor and, over a period of one to three months, grows into the finished laboratory-grown diamond.
Checking the certificate
When buying a lab grown diamond, you need to check the comments section on the certificate to confirm the method used. Was it through HPHT or CVD? If created through CVD, does it specify that a Type IIa diamond was used?
Value of created diamonds
Creating diamonds is not like making a loaf of bread, where you put your ingredients into the mix and, if you follow the recipe, it comes out perfect every time. Creating diamonds has so many variables – relating to the required heat, pressure, time frames and growth rates – that it must be like controlling a spaceship and flying into space with Elon Musk. This variability leads to high fail rates, making the yield of the growth process incredibly unpredictable. Most created diamonds sit in the lower I to K range for colour and SI (G-K VVS-SI1) to I range for clarity (refer to chapter 7). This means that a created diamond in the D to F range for colour and in the VS range for clarity represents a small percentage of all diamonds that are created. If you’re sourcing such a diamond, you’re looking for something rare and hard to find (and so more valuable).
This, along with the millions of dollars already spent in R&D, means that the value of a created diamond falling as low as $1 is incredibly unlikely.
Under the microscope
Diamonds are almost entirely made of carbon. The type Ia diamond, for example, is made up of over 98 per cent carbon, along with trace elements of nitrogen and other minor impurities in them. The type IIa diamond is almost exclusively made up of just carbon. (These make up just 1 to 2 per cent of all mined diamonds.)
To get a better idea of the effect of trace elements on light performance, imagine you are looking through your car windscreen after having been driving for a couple of months. On the windscreen might be the general grime of pollution, putting a fine film on the surface, along the occasion bug that has hit your window and other nasties that have found their way on to your screen. All of this impairs the clean transparency of your vision. Now imagine your windscreen has been cleaned with a premium grade solution that has made it so clear you find it hard to tell there is a glass barrier there at all.
At a microscopic level, this is like the difference between the type Ia and type IIa diamond. While the difference may seem small, it makes a significant impact on your diamond’s appearance and value. The type IIa diamond just has a certain crispness to it, and this type is possible with created diamonds.
Interesting fact for the chemistry buffs on trivia night
Carbon has four covalent bonds and nitrogen only has three. As mentioned, a type Ia diamond has carbon and nitrogen. Having nitrogen in the diamond’s crystalline lattice structure means it absorbs blue light, which leaves yellow light being emitted. Therefore, the more nitrogen a diamond has, the more yellow it looks.
The type IIa diamond, on the other hand has almost no nitrogen, which leaves it facing up whiter.
Considering the Sarine Light Performance report
Along with the ‘four Cs’ of cut, colour, clarity, and carat weight (refer to chapter 7) a new measure of a diamond’s performance rates how it interacts with light – using the Sarine Light Performance rating. The highest light report ranking you can get using this system is an Ultimate3. With practice and skill, it is possible to select a stone that has the right proportions, cut, clarity and colour to achieve this ranking. However, it has been my experience that it is almost impossible for a mined diamond to reach this classification due to the quality of the crystal and the way the light travels through the crystal.
Achieving an Ultimate cut grade (which is higher than the standard GIA excellent cut – refer to chapter 7) means that you diamond will sparkle more, even when dirty. Diamonds in the Ultimate range are simply beautiful and hard to source, which makes them even more desirable. Laboratory created diamonds are more likely to achieve the Ultimate 3 ranking than mined diamonds.
Mined versus created – or taxi versus Uber
One of the things clients often say to me is that they prefer a mined diamond because they believe it to be ‘traditional’ – to which I usually ask them if they use an Uber or a taxi. Almost everyone says they use an Uber, and I then ask, ‘Why isn’t a taxi ‘traditional’?’
The funny thing about technology is that it is often first seen with sceptical eyes, before being slowly adopted, and finally accepted and seen as common place. Even something such as buying online and having your shopping delivered used to be viewed with apprehension – putting your credit card information and address into the website? What if someone fraudulently purchased something on your card? Now no-one gives it a second thought.
Are lab grown diamonds a young person diamond?
As a rule, I find the client age line for choosing a created diamond is around 45 years. While it might be said that younger people embrace technology faster than the more seasoned of us, it isn’t always the case.
I had a couple recently celebrating their 43-year wedding anniversary with a 4.6ct E VS1 round brilliant, created diamond. If they had wanted to go for a mined equivalent, they would have had to pay more than $120,000 extra.
Spend more, save more
While ‘spend more to save more’ might be a funny catchphrase aimed at getting you to spend more at the Christmas and Boxing Day sales, it really is true when it comes to diamonds. The bigger the created diamond that you choose, the more you save. At the time of writing, the average saving when purchasing a one-carat created diamond was $5000, while you could save $12,000 if purchasing a 1.5ct created diamond, and $25,000 on a two-carat one.
The conversation I often have with my clients is around what they could do with the extra money. For a lot of them, the money saved can go towards a house deposit, paying for the wedding or even a house renovation.
Clients often decide to either save the money they would have otherwise had to spend for a comparable mined diamond, or they keep their budget the same and increase the size and quality of the diamond they can afford to buy. Depending on the quality of the diamond you are looking at, for example, you can likely get around a 40 to 50 per cent bigger diamond for the same money. So, if you’re looking at a one-carat mined diamond, in a created diamond you would be looking at 1.5ct-plus size diamond, which is certainly a noticeable difference.
The other bonus factor you usually find in a created diamond is that the cost of upgrading your quality is substantially less. For example, upgrading to a diamond in the VS range for clarity from one in the SI range might cost $200 in a created diamond, but might be $1000 more in a mined diamond.
One of the joys of my profession is seeing happy clients after they have been proposed to. Usually, they come in and love to tell the story of how their partner proposed, and then proudly show off the ring their partner chose. What I have seen over the last two years is the elation that comes from their expectations being exceeded, not just in the size of the diamond, but in maximising the other three of the 4Cs – cut grade, colour, and clarity. Exceeding expectations in all areas becomes more possible when considering created diamonds.
You may already know that my wife and I have triplets (plus one). One of the questions I am often asked it is whether the triplet pregnancy was by IVF. While it wasn’t, I have had many families and friends who have had their children with the assistance of IVF.
Imagine if you were made through IVF and your partner was made through the good old-fashioned way. No-one would look at you as a synthetic human; you just had a different start in life. In the same way, you couldn’t walk down the Queen St Mall in Brisbane, for example, and pick out the IVF babies. A created diamond can be just as beautiful, regardless of its origin being from a laboratory rather than the ground.
Engagement ring versus other diamond jewellery
While initially lab grown diamonds were extremely popular with fine jewellery, such as diamond pendants, earrings and diamond tennis bracelets, the inclusion of a created diamond as the main feature in engagement rings has seen a huge increase in recent years. At the time of writing, the trend is about 70 per cent of all engagement rings have a created diamond in the centre.
Our Ready to Wear Designer Engagement Ring collection is available in both laboratory grown diamonds and man made diamonds and you can check out our range here.
Proposed with an African mined diamond
Having now helped more than 7800 couples choose their dream engagement ring, one of the things I love doing, being a romantic at heart, is to ask people when they come back in to have their ring sized and perfectly fitted is how their partner did with the proposal. They often talk about how nervous their partner was, how amazing the proposal was (especially if their partner had some proposal coaching) and how much they love the ring.
I am yet to hear a bride talk about how amazing the proposal was because of their African mined diamond. At the end of the day, your diamond engagement ring is a symbol of your commitment together, as you start out on your adventure together. Its origins don’t affect your commitment or the story of your adventure.
Frequent questions
Through this chapter I’ve covered some of the initial concerns and questions most people have about created diamonds. In the following sections, I cover some more specific questions.
Are diamonds an investment?
To my understanding of an investment asset, a diamond meets none of the standard criteria (pink diamonds from the Argyle mind excluded!) You are not buying it to sell at some point in the future and make a profit. It does not pay you any dividends or returns, and the tax department certainly doesn’t make it tax deductible. The only investment it represents is in your happiness. I am yet to meet someone who would be happy about you selling their engagement ring.
I often look at my phone in the same way. I bought it because of what it can do and the enjoyment it brings me (even when I get addicted to the many silly games that can be downloaded onto it), not because I was ever thinking of how much I might get for it at some point in the future.
Can lab grown diamonds be insured?
Insurance companies will insure your created diamond. Just make sure that you have your stone valued by a recognised valuer from the Australian National Council of Jewellery Valuers (ncjv.com.au/). The amount insured must relate to your purchase amount. For example, you can’t purchase a created diamond and insure it for the price of a mined diamond. The insurance company will just replace what it was that you originally purchased – so insuring it for more will just mean that you are paying a higher premium for no reason.
Can they be valued?
Diamonds are valued according to their ratings in terms of colour, clarity, cut grade, carat weight – and origin. So, your created diamond will be valued in the same way as a mined diamond would be, just with the relevant adjustment to bring it in line with what you paid. For example, if a mined diamond would be valued at $15,000 as a classic one-carat F-colour VS-clarity diamond (and you would have paid close to this for such a diamond), a comparable created diamond with the same stats might be valued at $8000 (and, again, you would have paid close to this).
Are they graded the same?
Lab grown diamonds are graded absolutely the same as mined diamonds, because they are a created to be the same at a molecular level. All the international diamond grading laboratories use the recognised grading system for colour, clarity, cut and carat weight. Your created diamond should come with an international grading report and be laser inscribed to authenticate your stone.
Are they cut the same?
Lab Grown diamonds have the same hardness and optical properties as mined diamonds, so they are cut in the same way. The diamond follows the same path a mined diamond would – in the way the crystal is selected, cut is plotted for inclusions and yield determined to get the best result, and right down to the shape of the diamond they choose to cut.
However, there has been an expected windfall with laboratory grown diamonds – because the rough diamond crystals created are more consistent and regular, the cutters are often able to achieve a more ideal cut, whereas the irregularity in mined diamond rough crystals leads to more variation in the cutting.
Do they have the same certification?
At the time of writing, the main diamond grading laboratory for created diamonds is the International Gemmological Institute (IGI) laboratory. While the Gemmological Institute of America (GIA) laboratory was reluctant to grade created diamonds for the first year, they have now started grading created diamonds. However, their delay has meant that the IGI laboratory report is seen as the most recognised report to have when buying a created diamond.
What happens if you put it on a diamond tester?
Putting a lab grown diamond on a standard diamond tester will have it report as a diamond. Some newer diamond testers can check whether the diamond is a Type Ia or a Type IIa diamond, but this is not a conclusive test that a diamond is created. If the diamond shows up as a Type IIa crystal using this tester, further testing is then needed to confirm it is created.
What does the future look like in the diamond industry?
A lot has been made public on the topic of mined and created diamonds, and the ethics and sustainability of both. The manufacturing process for created diamonds requires enormous amounts of energy. Yes, some diamond producers use renewable energy to create their diamonds, but now this isn’t across the whole industry. What is undisputed is that they are not digging a massive hole in the planet that can be seen from space. The large volume of water associated with mining isn’t required with created diamonds either.
Several diamond growers are also leading the industry in their attempts to be more transparent and sustainable – for example, in the following areas:
· Verified origin traceability
· Ethical stewardship
· Climate neutrality
· Sustainable production practices
· Sustainable community and planetary investments.
What these means is that a shift is occurring in the industry. It is no longer just about producing beautiful gems, but also about doing the right thing for the planet and the future generations.
Origin traceability involves using state of the art traceability to track the diamond throughout its whole journey – from the diamond seed, through its international certification, right to the point where it is placed in a piece of jewellery you can have the enjoyment of wearing.
Ethical stewardship involves companies meeting a set of 12 strict ethical principles to ensure that everyone in the supply chain is looked after from a human rights point of view.
Climate neutrality means that a company must be climate neutral, not just in its current production, but also from the circumstances prior to the manufacturing becoming possible.
Sustainability production can only be achieved by offsetting the environmental and health impacts.
Sustainability investments are all about the role business can play in uplifting the vulnerable communities around them, and investing in protecting the climate, purifying the air, and protecting the waterways.
Sustainably is a factor
I would say that 70 per cent of clients I show a created diamond to choose it because of the 50 per cent size boost, while the other 30 per cent of clients choose it for the ethical, sustainability and environmentally friendly reasons. (I am sure a reasonable percentage of clients choose it for both reasons.)
The laboratory grown diamond industry is escalating their sustainability developments with a focus on sustainability across the entire process, and their innovations are fast becoming an attractive aspect for today’s modern consumer.
Concluding thoughts
So, in conclusion, created diamonds are here to stay. The growth rate and acceptance rate of created diamonds is increasing at an exponential rate. Some stores in the US are now selling created diamonds exclusively.
Whether or not you decide if a created diamond is a right for you will come down to where you see the value, because both options are beautiful. One has a story that some find appealing and the other has certain advantages, as outlined in this chapter.
For me, as with most things in life, I find the best answer comes in seeing them for myself firsthand. An intellectual understanding is a great first step, but this is no substitute for seeing a mined diamond and a created one side by side. After all, you or your partner will be wearing this for an exceptionally long time, so it is important to make sure you make the right choice.
From my perspective, the joy many of my clients’ experience in receiving a diamond that is beyond their wildest dreams is undeniable – and this they can often add the satisfaction of still having the money they need for the necessities of life, where they are right now.
If you want to learn more we also offer free diamond masterclasses, where you can come along in a relaxed setting and get to know more about diamonds than 90% of sales people put there!