Lab-Grown or Natural: An Honest Comparison

Laboratory-grown diamonds share the chemical and optical properties of natural ones. What actually differs, and how to decide without being sold to.

This is the question we are asked most often now, and it is usually asked nervously, as though there is a correct answer the client is expected to already know.

There is not. There is a set of trade-offs.

What is the same

A laboratory-grown diamond has essentially the same chemical, physical and optical properties as a natural one. It is diamond. It is not a simulant, not cubic zirconia, not moissanite. It scratches what diamond scratches and it returns light the way diamond returns light.

Telling them apart reliably requires specialised instruments. Not a loupe, not a jeweller's eye, not a hardness test at home.

What differs

Origin. One formed over geological time and was mined. The other was grown in a controlled environment over weeks.

Documentation. Grading laboratories issue distinct reports for laboratory-grown stones, and the stones themselves are laser-inscribed to identify them permanently. This is deliberate. Nobody should be able to lose track of which they own.

Price and its behaviour. Laboratory-grown stones cost considerably less at the point of sale. How that price behaves over time is a different question, and anyone who answers it with certainty is guessing.

How we counsel it

If the budget is fixed and the priority is size or performance for the money, laboratory-grown is a rational choice and we will happily set one.

If the piece is meant to be handed to someone in forty years, origin tends to matter more to people than they expect it to when they are choosing.

What we will not do is pretend one is a compromise and the other is virtue. They are different products with different reasons, and the client is the only person who can weigh them.

Book a complimentary design consultation at our Kuala Lumpur atelier: 010-766 7448 · hq@cgarden.com.my

C'Garden is an independent bespoke jeweller in Kuala Lumpur. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or certified by any organisation, laboratory or brand named in this article. Third-party names are used only to refer factually to those organisations and their published standards. All text and imagery in this article is original work created by C'Garden.

Reference

Gemological Institute of America. (n.d.). Is there a difference between natural and laboratory-grown diamonds? GIA. https://www.gia.edu/gia-news-research/difference-between-natural-laboratory-grown-diamonds