At Secrète Fine Jewelry, we have always hand crafted every piece of jewelry in our own Bethesda workshop, with careful attention paid for each client’s exact wishes. As the world has become more aware of unethical practices in every industry, it has become all the more important for transparency and honesty about the sourcing of materials, especially diamonds. Many couples are doing their due-diligence researching options for conflict-free engagement rings, and Secrète Fine Jewelry is happy to help.
In addition to all of our jewelry being hand-crafted in Maryland by master jewelers, and in addition to our store being a small family business, we’re proud to offer many ethical engagement ring options. You have so many choices at Secrète: using gems sourced from ecologically- and ethically-friendly sources, using Canadian diamonds, using recycled diamonds, using fine diamond alternatives, or using lab-created diamonds. We’re exploring lots of conflict free custom engagement ring options in our blogs, but this week, we’re focused on the advantages of lab-grown diamonds.
What are lab-created diamonds?
Lab created diamonds (or lab-grown diamonds) are scientifically, chemically, and molecularly indistinguishable from naturally mined diamonds. More importantly, they are visually indistinguishable from naturally mined diamonds (because really, people, we’re talking about jewelry, and it’s got to be pretty). They’re made in laboratories in different places around the world using a really cool process that simulates the type of conditions it takes the earth to form a diamond underground– what takes Mother Earth millions of years can be recreated in a lab in a few months. Imagine a really hard-core pressure cooker.
Lab created diamonds are different than imitation-diamonds. They’re not the same as cubic zirconias or Swarovski crystals, which are cheap, soft, mass-produced, and not chemically or structurally anything like a diamond. They’re also not like more high-end diamond alternatives, like Moissanite, which is a very hard synthetic stone with a lot of sparkle, but a different molecular structure and a tendency towards a noticeable greenish-brown tinge. Lab grown diamonds are the gemological equivalent of a test-tube baby; they weren’t conceived “the old-fashioned way,” but after that, everything else is exactly the same as their natural equivalents.
Lab-grown diamonds are scientifically identical to naturally-formed diamonds, and they can be used in all the same applications. Imitiation diamonds (like cubic zirconias or Swarovski crystals) are chemically different and much softer, making them poor choices for engagement rings or wedding bands that would be worn daily.
How do I choose a lab created diamond?
Like all diamond purchases, you’ll need to consider the 4Cs, your design goals, and your budget. You’ll want to talk to your jeweler about the style of engagement ring you want and what diamond would look best for your specific project.
In addition, you should feel free to ask questions about the origins of your lab grown diamond. We’ve heard sketchy stories about some jewelry stores’ responses to questions about their lab stones; jewelers should be able to give very specific information about the origins of their lab-grown diamonds, citing a state or city, not something vague like “probably Russia” (a real response from another Washington, DC jeweler, believe it or not). At Secrète Fine Jewelry, we source all of our lab-created diamonds from the United States– many are created in New York state, but some are from Oregon, California, and even Texas.
You should also make sure your lab-grown diamonds are certified. GIA only recently began certifying lab-created diamonds. Most commonly, a lab-grown diamond will have a certificate from IGI or GCAL or another reputable lab. Just because it’s factory-created, it doesn’t mean the specifications are guaranteed. Trustworthy jewelers will provide third party certificates for you lab-created diamonds that attest to the color, carat, clarity, and cut of the stone, matching it to its laser-inscribed serial number.
Finally, if you’re choosing to create a custom engagement ring with a lab created stone, be sure to find a jeweler who can make a custom engagement setting using the ethical stones of your choice for side stones. Some of these “ethical” engagement online mega-stores will help you find a lab diamond for the center stone, but give you no options when it comes to the other diamonds on the ring– from the side stones to the halo to any pave or accent stones.
This just doesn’t make sense to us. At Secrète, we understand that couples who prefer lab diamonds for their ethical engagement rings shouldn’t have to throw their values out the window because it’s easier for the company to have prefab settings. We work with our clients to make sure every stone in the ring, from the biggest center stone to the smallest piece of melee, fits their conflict-free standards. For ethical side and accent stones, our clients have a choice of lab-grown diamonds, recycled diamonds, Canadian diamonds, white sapphires, other white gems, Moissanites, or other synthetics. Each couple will have their preference, and each ring’s unique design will suggest a few front-runners, but the most important things are that we have transparency and that you have a choice.
Secrète Fine Jewelry made this lab-created three stone ring for a young DC couple back in 2018. We loved the unusual combination of the oval center stone with the emerald-cut side stones. The groom chose lab-created diamonds for his bride-to-be because of her STEM career; he knew she’d appreciate the science and technology that went into creating this ring.
Is it true that lab-created diamonds have more limited options when it comes to shape or quality factors?
Sometimes, when customers are looking for a very specific cut or shape of diamond, many jewelers will say, “Oh, that’s just not available in lab-created.” While it might be harder to find those specialty fancy cuts (like Old Mine cuts, Old European cuts, or even more interesting cuts like Ashoka-style criss-cross cushions, “moval” cuts, or modern geometric portrait cuts) in lab-created diamonds, it’s not hard to have them made. At Secrète Fine Jewelry, we work directly with lab-created diamond manufacturers to custom-grow and custom-cut diamonds to your exact specifications. If your girlfriend has been dreaming of an elongated Old Mine cut solitaire, but also wants the ethical reassurances of lab-created diamonds, and she wants it in a specific color, clarity, and size, we can order that up for you as simple as ordering a pizza. Within about a month or so, we can have a diamond created, cut, and certified just for you.
Fully customizing a diamond would not necessarily be possible for most budgets when it comes to natural-formed diamonds; while cut can be controlled, natural diamonds are created by Mother Nature, and she doesn’t take orders. So while there may be fewer options for lab-created diamonds on the shelf, it’s actually easy for a skilled custom designer like Secrète to have the diamond of your dreams created just for you.
At Secrète Fine Jewelry, we work closely with lab-created diamond manufacturers to custom-grow and custom-cut lab diamonds to meet your exact specifications. Whether you’re interested in unusual fancy shapes like these (left: long step-cut cushion, right: geometric step-cut marquise), or if you’re looking for something slightly more traditional but you can’t seem to find it anywhere else, reach out to us. Our custom-created lab-grown diamonds are lab certified and normally ready within about a month.
Lab-created diamond pros:
- Lab-created diamonds have all of the physical properties of natural-mined diamonds– from their durability to their sparkle, they have all the physical qualities of natural diamonds. .
- Lab-created diamonds have the same subtle flaws that natural diamonds have, meaning your stone won’t look fake because it’s “too perfect.” It will have the same character that people expect to see in a traditional diamond.
- Lab-created diamonds are more affordable than natural-mined diamonds. Whether you want to go bigger and brighter for you dollar or you simply want to save a little more for a honeymoon or that first house, you’ll find plenty of budget-friendly options with lab-grown diamonds.
- There is more transparency regarding the origin of your lab-created diamond. It’s easy to know exactly where your diamond was made and easy to verify that there was no conflict funded by its creation and that work conditions were safe and fair.
Lab-created diamond cons:
- Some consumers question how well lab-grown diamonds perform on the resale market. Because they’re a newer commodity, their long term investment prospects are largely unknown, whereas natural-mined diamonds have stood the test of time as solid investments.
- Natural-mined diamonds are an important natural resource in developing economies. While there have been bad practices in the past in diamond mining, much progress has been made to empower the people who live and work in communities where diamonds are mined. Lab-created diamonds displace an important source of economic empowerment in the developing world, shifting the market to the developed world. This has repercussions many people don’t stop to consider.
- Lab-created diamonds do not have the same emotional meaning as natural-mined diamonds to all people. Some people believe the origins of a diamond are an important part of its symbolic meaning; natural diamonds take at least a billion years to form (symbolizing eternal love and commitment). Almost as if by magic, they are rarer, purer, and stronger than anything else in nature. To some people, this magic cannot be synthesized in a lab.
Are you interested in designing an ethical engagement ring using American lab-grown diamonds? Reach out to us today, at our DC store in DuPont Circle, our Bethesda store in Wildwood Shopping Center, or online.
Secrète Fine Jewelry’s Bethesda workshop hand-crafts each ring to the exact detail of your vision.
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