Jul. 14, 2025
With major watch and jewellery brands including Pandora and Breitling making the switch, you will no doubt have heard of lab-grown diamonds. But do you know what they actually are, and should you buy them?
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Chemically identical to natural diamonds, it requires special technology to be able to tell the stones apart. They are made in laboratories, as the name suggests, by exposing carbon to high pressures and temperatures that mimic the conditions that occurred underground millions of years ago to create natural diamonds.
With the number of dedicated lab-grown diamond jewellery brands growing – Courbet, Vever, Vrai, Or & Elle, Kimaï, Oscar Massin, Sky Diamond – and most jewellers offering these stones alongside natural diamonds like the One in a Trillion collection by Chupi , here are five reasons to consider making a purchase.
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Five reasons to choose natural diamonds: Click to read
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1: No mining required
Digging for natural diamonds is messy. According to lab-grown diamond brand Clean Origin, for every 1ct of mined diamond, 100 square feet of earth needs to be dug up, creating 6,000 pounds of mineral waste and destroying natural habitats. Lab-grown diamonds require no mining. Some companies would have you believe that this means lab-grown diamonds are a more sustainable choice than natural diamonds. There is an argument for this, but it is important to know that not all producers of these stones are the same, and achieving those high temperatures and pressures requires a lot of energy. If sustainability is your main driver, make sure to seek out certified carbon-neutral producers, such as Diamond Foundry.
For top-tier diamond sustainability credentials, look for those with an SCS 007 certificate, such as Lattitude, GreenRocks and Lusix (in which LVMH has invested). Ask your jeweller about the origins of your lab-grown stone, just as you would if it was natural.
2: No chance of getting a blood diamond
Although conflict diamonds only account for 1% of the world’s supply today, it was previously a lot higher. According to the Kimberly Process, set up to guard against blood diamonds, it was as much as 15% in the s. There is also the issue of colonialisation, true ownership and proper wealth distribution to consider: diamond-producing nations or areas still tend to be poor, despite being blessed with the world’s most expensive natural riches. Often people think antique or vintage diamonds are a more ethical option, but really this just depends on how long your memory is. A lot of natural diamonds are recycled and recut, and the older the stone, the less likely that human rights were a consideration when it was being mined. With a lab-grown stone, this isn’t something you have to worry about
3: More bling for your buck
One of the biggest attractions with a lab-grown diamond is the price. You can have a stone that is identical to the naked – or even trained – eye for a fraction of the price. This is especially true for fancy colour diamonds, as natural blue, pink and yellow diamonds are incredibly expensive and these shades can now be created in a lab. The difference in what you will pay for mined versus made varies.
To give a sense of the savings, we compared two identical engagement rings: the Delicacy solitaire ring in 18ct white gold set with a 1ct D-colour SI2 stone with excellent cut by 77 Diamonds. The version with the natural diamond cost just less than £4,340, while the lab-grown diamond ring came in at about £1,190. That’s a saving of more than 70%, which feels right given the current difference in price between the two types of stones at wholesale, but not all retailers are passing on these savings yet. If your jeweller is only offering a discount of, say, 30% against natural prices, you are most likely overpaying. This downward price trajectory is likely to continue in the years to come, but if you don’t care about investment and just want an affordable, beautiful jewel, then lab-grown is the way to go.
4: The joy of weird science
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For decades we have been sold diamonds on romance: the idea that they were formed millions or billions of years ago beneath the earth’s crust, and were just waiting to find their way to you. It’s a nice story, but there is also a certain romance in the creation story of lab-grown diamonds for anyone with an interest in science and technology. The fact that humans can recreate diamonds in a laboratory is kind of mind blowing, and there is much joy to be taken from learning more about the cutting-edge technology required to do so. It is also a great story to be able to share with any admirers of your lab-grown diamonds.
5: New possibilities
As lab-grown diamonds are grown to order in a laboratory, it opens up a lot of possibilities in terms of design that just wouldn’t be achievable with natural diamonds; or if they were, they would be prohibitively expensive. TAG Heuer has created some experimental timepieces using lab-grown diamonds, including the Carrera Plasma Diamant D’Avant-Garde. Bespoke cuts of lab-grown diamonds in irregular shapes have been set into the case and bracelet, and, most spectacularly, the crown of the watch has been carved out of a single block of lab-grown diamond.
Business of Fashion has named “The Year of the Lab Grown Diamond.” It seems like the trend of lab-grown diamonds is in the news every day. Taylor Swift, Zoe Saldana, Emma Watson, Jennifer Lopez, Reese Witherspoon and Meghan Markle have worn them on the red carpet, to premieres, on television, and out on the town.
As a result, more and more brands and consumers are deciding that it’s now the right time to switch from mined diamonds to their lab-grown counterparts. Prada announced its first fine jewelry collection featuring lab grown diamonds, including a $274,500 necklace with 40 carats of lab grown diamonds that would have cost over million if it were set with mined diamonds. The LVMH luxury brand Fred in Paris announced a new collection featuring lab grown diamonds, including a 8.88-carat blue lab grown diamond the brand has named “The Audacious Blue,” which will tour the world.
Millennial and Gen Z consumers, the main purchasers of diamonds for engagement rings, are much less likely to buy traditional mined diamonds to pledge their love. In a recent survey by The MVEye, nearly 70% of millennials are considering buying lab grown diamond engagement rings. Why are lab-grown diamonds in so much demand right now? Here are the top five reasons that lab grown diamonds are the gem of the year, and likely to be trending for years to come.
The first reason lab grown diamonds are trending is that they’re diamonds. No other gem has the same irresistible combination of brilliance, durability and an icy white color that seems to radiate light. Diamonds, whether they formed in the earth or in a lab, are unique optically, physically and chemically.
Diamonds, whether lab grown or mined, actually slow down light to half-speed, making it reflect and refract into rainbows and scintillation. They have more atoms per square millimeter than any other substance on Earth. In fact, you’d have to warp to a white dwarf star to find something with more molecular density. Those tight atomic bonds mean that diamond is a perfect ten out of ten on the Mohs scale of gemstone hardness. And diamonds, whether they form in the lab or deep in the Earth, are the only gem composed of a single element.
Those exceptional optical physical and chemical properties mean that diamonds are everyone’s favorite accessory. Their unrivalled hardness and enduring beauty have also made them the symbol of love, a romantic way to say forever, and the most popular gemstone for engagement rings.
Lab grown diamonds may look exactly the same as mined diamonds but their prices tags don’t. At all. Lab grown diamonds cost a fraction what mined diamonds cost. And the bigger the carat weight, the bigger the difference. Expect to pay one-half the price of a mined diamond for the same quality. You can afford to supersize your lab grown diamond and upgrade to the kind of quality you’ve always wanted. Multiple carats, icy color and crystal clarity are no longer out of reach. That's why many women are upgrading to the lab grown diamond necklaces and lab grown diamond earrings in the styles and carat weights they always wanted.
The gorgeous fine quality of lab-grown diamonds is no accident. When the process to grow diamonds in the lab was first developed, the created diamonds were off color and full of inclusions. In the past few years, scientists have refined their equipment and techniques to improve the size, color, and clarity of the diamond crystals grown in the labs. The largest polished lab grown gems are still smaller than the largest mined diamonds: the record set by the 3,107 carat Cullinan rough diamond, now part of the British Crown Jewels isn’t in danger yet. But cut lab grown diamonds up to five carats are now widely available.
Lab grown diamonds are Type IIa diamonds, a classification that means that their crystals are remarkably free from impurities. Type IIa are the purest type of diamonds, with virtually no nitrogen, the common element that causes the yellowish tint in most natural diamonds. Less than 2% of natural diamonds are Type IIa. That includes the Cullinan: that elite status now has to be shared with lab grown diamonds. The purity of lab grown diamonds also makes them a powerful symbol of true love.
Miners go to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to find natural diamonds. On average, mining every carat displaces 250 tons of earth, requires 120 gallons of water and emits 143 pounds of CO2. Growing lab grown diamonds takes a lot of energy to forge the strong bonds that make these crystals of carbon so exceptional. But innovative growers have turned to renewable sources for that energy. At Brilliant Carbon, we are proud that our supplier uses 100% solar and wind power to create our beautiful lab grown diamonds. And our supplier also offsets the carbon emitted from shipping and worker transportation so our lab grown diamonds can be certified climate neutral and carbon neutral. And every purchase from Brilliant Carbon gives back: you can even choose the cause your purchase will support in the shopping cart.
Lab grown diamonds have excellent clarity. They are also completely transparent. With a direct pipeline from the grower to you, our lab grown diamonds are traceable from the lab to your hands. A natural diamond can change hands as many as 20 times from the miner to the jewelry store. That’s why it’s very challenging to trace natural diamonds every step of the way. In many cases, it’s not even possible to tell what country natural diamonds were mined in. That’s why it’s been a real challenge to eliminate Russian mined diamonds from the market today, despite the sanctions in the Unites States and Europe.
In addition to being traceable, lab grown diamonds have their quality graded by independent gemological institutions so you can be sure of their quality. In fact, the same gemological laboratories grade both lab grown diamonds and natural diamonds using the same standards and grading scale, the 4Cs of diamond quality. You can be confident that a natural diamond and a lab grown diamond with the same quality grades will look the same.
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