“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” has taken new meaning over the years. Nowadays, you don’t have to mine for the precious stone, you can have one created instead. While natural diamonds are still popular due to how scarce they are, lab grown diamonds put up a good fight as a better alternative.
Here are some of the top reasons why lab grown diamonds outmatch the traditionally mined diamond.
- Lab Diamonds Don’t Come With the Hefty Price Tag
With the same budget, you can get a larger or higher quality diamond if you choose lab grown diamonds. If you’re looking for an engagement ring, you would be able to upgrade the cut, clarity and carat of your lab grown diamond at a surprisingly affordable rate.
This is because the process to create lab grown diamonds mirrors what happens in nature but without the ethical and environmental harm. Simply put, the situation that happens under the Earth’s surface is recreated in an advanced lab. It takes around six to ten weeks and then the diamonds are ready.
The same gemologists that certify mined diamonds grade the lab grown ones after they have been cut and polished. They end up being 40% less expensive but with the same quality.
- Lab grown Diamonds Look the Same as Natural Diamonds
What makes lab grown diamonds so great is how they look exactly the same as mined diamonds. If you used a diamond detector, you still wouldn’t be able to identify the difference between the two as they are both visually and chemically the same. One main difference is that lab grown diamonds have a microscopic inscription. But you can only see this with special equipment; with the naked eye, it’s identical.
Your friends, family and yourself won’t be able to spot the difference. This means you can get that ring you’ve been dreaming about but at a much lower price and without the guilt.
- They Are Sourced Ethically
Speaking of guilt, mined diamonds have reputation for being unethically sourced. If you’ve seen the movie Blood Diamond, you’d understand. The term blood diamond got its name due to being the barter item that funded various rebellions and wars in Africa. There are also many other ethical issues regarding human rights violations, poor working conditions, and unfair wages.
Everyone can avoid these humanitarian and ethical issues by choosing lab grown diamonds. Additionally, the supply chain is quite long for mined diamonds. The origin isn’t as traceable as a lab grown diamond, making it harder to know whether they were sourced ethically or not. If you buy a lab grown diamond, you know exactly where it comes from and won’t have played a part in the ethical issues involved with mined diamonds.
- Lab grown Diamonds Are Environmentally Friendly
This is pretty simple. Since they aren’t actually mined, lab grown diamonds don’t have any negative effects on the environment. To mine a single diamond, one needs to go through more than 100 thousand pounds of dirt. Unfortunately, that’ll probably be a 1-carat diamond, so you’ll have to sift through even more dirt. Creating such large man-made holes and uprooting such a landscape can really affect the ecological systems.
lab grown diamonds are created in a controlled environment, leading to very minimal impacts.
- They Are Unique and Stylish
Just like how mined diamonds are unique, you can also get lab grown diamonds with contemporary, unique designs. They also come in a variety of settings and shapes. Like mined diamonds, you can choose the usual shapes like oval, round, cushion or princess. You can even get more popular shapes like heart, marquise, emerald and pear. You have the same options as mined diamonds, Even for the settings, you can choose any setting that you want, giving lab grown diamonds a wide range of options.
- Lab grown Diamonds Are Convenient to Buy
To grow a diamond in a lab, the diamond seed is exposed to similar temperatures and pressures that a mined diamond goes through but more quickly. Since the process is controlled, the lab grown diamonds are always high-quality, making it super convenient to buy online.
What’s the relation between the two? Buying mined diamonds online can be tricky unless you know where it’s coming from. But then you have to worry about the price and its authenticity. With lab grown diamonds, the quality is the same as mined diamonds, so finding one online wouldn’t be hard to do. Since it’s also more affordable, your whole shopping experience becomes that much more convenient.
More and more millennials are choosing lab grown diamonds over mined diamonds for all the reasons mentioned above. Whether you’re on a tight budget and want to be ethical and protect the environment, lab grown diamonds are for you. You can get a beautiful engagement ring at a much lower price tag without any guilt. You can get exactly what you’re looking for with lab grown diamonds while still maintaining their uniqueness. You can even get a customized design if you want, which is something that can’t be done for mined diamonds.
- Color
Colored diamonds are not common. But with lab grown diamonds, you can get some of the greatest colored diamonds you’ve ever seen. It’s super rare to find colored diamonds, around 10,000 times as rare. It’s less than 1% of the market. You would normally find colored diamonds on influential or powerful people.
But that’s no longer the case. Now, everyone can have colored diamonds at a fraction of the cost. You can get the beauty of colored gems without breaking the bank. The color of diamonds is determined by introducing elements during the growth process, creating different hues. If you add nitrogen during the process, you can create orange diamonds. Boron makes it purple.
So, Are They Worth It?
It all comes down to you. A lab grown diamond is essentially the same as a mined diamond except it’s created and not found. If you like the idea of owning a rare diamond that was found in another country, you could choose mined diamonds. If you want the same look and feel as a diamond but don’t want to uncover tonnes of dirt and pay a huge price, choose the lab grown diamond. It also depends on your budget and whether you want to invest a large amount in a diamond.
As stated earlier, you can get all the benefits of mined diamonds without any of the cons that come with them. They are significantly cheaper, ethically sourced, look the same as mined diamonds and are very easy to find online. You can even choose the design that you want and it can be customized with any settings.