My roommate and I were casually talking about engagement rings when she said that she doesn’t like lab grown diamonds because they are not real. And when compared to mined diamonds (natural diamonds) the quality is obvious.
Obviously, I don’t own a diamond and I don’t spend too much time searching it up so I cannot calim knowledge about it comapred to her but….
In my mind, they are basically same. Where one is formed by conditions of environment and the other one is generated in a lab. The conditions aren’t natural but the by-product should be the same right?
Would your naked eye actually notice the difference? Or when you use the diamond tester it shows significant difference?
I think essentially she was basing her opinion based on the price between the two because mined diamonds are significantly more expensive (obviously bec of hazard required to acquire it) compared to lab grown. Ergo, the former must be better.
Please explain it to me so I can probably explain it to her (if need arise) without causing any disagreements.
TL;DR: Is mined diamond “real” diamond and lab-grown diamond “fake” diamond.
Comments
The only difference is that the “lab made” ones are even more perfect. Chemically and physically speaking they are the same thing.
If her appreciation of mined diamonds is based on their price, then she’s going to be disappointed to learn that their price is far more artificial than lab grown diamonds.
The difference is cost, monetarily and morality.
BOTH are “real diamonds”, they just take different paths to the jewellery store counter.
Man made diamonds do not come with the baggage that exists with mined diamonds. No child labour, tribal warfare, exploitative employers, slavery, and tragedy.
And, neither is very rare, so both are GROSSLY overpriced for what you are receiving.
Lab grown diamonds are whatever you want them to be. “Real” is, in this case, whatever she decides it is. A synthetic diamond is not a “real” natural diamond, a natural diamond is not a “real” synthetic diamond.
The only reason you can measure a difference is because laws were passed requiring that synthetic diamonds not get too similar to natural diamonds, specifically to “protect” the market.
Mined diamonds aren’t expensive because of hazard – they’re expensive because of artificial scarcity and her reasoning is cyclical. It’s better because it’s more expensive and it’s more expensive because it’s better. What?
Mined diamonds aren’t expensive because of any production/mining process the price is kept artificially high to maximise revenue. They are also incredibly exploitative and buying them directly contributes to human misery. They’re also structurally identical to lab grown but if you particularly want to support death and misery then go for the mined ones.
Natural diamonds aren’t expensive because of the hazard from mining it. It’s a cartel that artificially restricts supply to keep the price high.
Lab diamonds are chemically and structurally diamonds. They are completely identical to a mined diamond. You wouldn’t say that a sweater is a fake sweater because it was made using a knitting machine rather than two needles, or that distilled water is fake water because you got it using a still instead of directly out of a lake. They are the same thing obtained by different means.
The Child Slave Blood is what makes “real” diamonds special.
They are both “real”. A fake diamond is a cubic zirconium.
Lab created diamonds will be perfect. This is because the manufacturing process doesn’t have any contaminants. Meanwhile, the ones created in the earth have little bits of dirt and stuff in them.
>> obviously bec of hazard required to acquire it
The scarcity of mined diamonds are artificially created by De Beers and other diamond companies to jack up the price.
Real and lab grown diamonds are both made from carbon. In fact, lab grown diamonds are even more ‘perfect’ than mined diamonds. Decades of propaganda and PR campaign from diamond companies have convinced a large part of the population that mined diamonds are superior.
My advice is you can try to explain the differences to her. And then try to convince her that the money saved from buying a lab grown diamond can better used for other things, such as a more lavish wedding, a dream honeymoon trip, or a home.
Lab grown diamonds are always chemically pure carbon diamonds (unless they dope them for aesthetic reasons). The conditions in the lab are very strictly controlled which means the product is very strictly controlled leading to a much higher quality diamond than you could ever get consistently in mined diamonds.
Mined diamonds, on the other hand, have the best marketing you’ll ever see anywhere for any product. They’re expensive because that can be.
If you need to have a diamond, get a lab grown diamond. It is both cheaper AND higher quality.
There’s also a reason industry relies on lab diamonds. If mined diamonds were better, they’d use those instead.
Lab diamonds have less flaws in them than natural diamonds.
Natural diamonds are generally mined by slaves.
Natural diamonds aren’t that rare. They cost as much as they do because most diamond mines are owned by the same company, and they limit the supply to keep prices up.
They can tell the difference because the lab grown ones are better (more perfect) than natural ones. So no you won’t be able to see a difference, and if you did the ‘better’ ones would be the manufactured ones.
Girls like jewelry because of the price. They like showing off their 5000 dollar ring to their friends. That’s why they don’t like the cheaper stuff.
They are both real diamonds, made from a certain structure of carbon. It is very difficult to tell the difference. Impossible with the naked eye and even a loupe. You’d need specialist equipment to detect the difference, and that’s because the structure of lab grown diamonds is more perfect than natural diamonds. They contain less structural defects.
One thing I don’t get is if it’s cheaper and easier to produce lab grown, why don’t the big diamond companies just do that but still rely on artificial scarcity and branding to make them expensive, just like fashion companies do. Wouldn’t there be more profit in that?
I can produce oxygen by having plants produce it so I can capture it and concentrate it by removing the other gases, or I can produce pure oxygen by electrolyzing water. Both methods will get me oxygen but the first will take longer, cost more, and have more contaminant gases in it. Is it “real” oxygen because plants made it? Of course not. Even the terminology of “real” and “synthetic” is marketing crap from DeBeers. Better descriptions are mined and lab grown.
Diamond is just a form of pure carbon. When it forms underground it ends up with contaminants. When it is grown in a lab they can choose to add the contaminants or not, so you get higher purity for a lower price. Your roommate is falling for deBeers marketing, and they are working hard to sucker people like her into paying exorbitant prices for a very common mineral that can be made in a lab at higher quality for a much cheaper price without the attendant slavery and abuse of miners.
They’re the same. The best analogy is making ice. One is made in your freezer, the other is made outside in the winter. They’re both the solid phase of h2o, just made in different locations.
Diamonds in general are a manipulated market. The value of them can be regulated by supply. I don’t really understand the fascination with them. The marketing around having to have a diamond ring is amazing and effective.
Honest question. What if youbtake a lab diamond to someone and they look at it witb their eye scope thingy etc to appraise it. Will it be the same ?
Diamond appraisers are trained to look at flaws when determining if a diamond is a lab stone or a dirt stone.
First, they look at the quantity of flaws; the more flaws a diamond has, the more likely it is to be a dirt diamond.
Then, they look for specific types of flaws. There are some flaws that would be harder to replicate in a lab than it would be to make a perfect stone.
After that, they can give you an answer as to whether or not they think someone dragged it out of the mud. But they can’t be sure. There is no way to actually tell.
Long story short, lab diamonds are superior in both quality and price. They only thing they fall sort in is human suffering required to bring you the stone.
The value of diamonds is a market construct even before the invention of lab grown diamonds. The De Beers corporation manipulated the diamond market to keep prices high. Now that lab created diamonds and moissanite are popular, overpriced mined diamonds are slowly going out of fashion. Especially since the man made versions are more sparkly, beautiful, and bigger for the money. When people criticize lab grown jewels it’s a bit of defensiveness, because their moms and grandmothers sunk so much money into “real” diamonds that are quickly losing value.