A Real Gem

On April 7, 2009. By Fran, under Industry News.

Diamond: A natural mineral consisting essentially of pure carbon crystallized with a cubic structure in the isometric system. Its hardness on the Mohs scale is 10, its specific gravity is approximately 3.52, it has a refractive index of approximately 2.42 and it can be found in many colors.

Call it what you may, bauble, rocks, bling – all mean the same thing, but by the end of this month, the definition will officially change. The Responsible Jewellery Council is retracting and rewriting its definition of a diamond to include laboratory-grown stones, to welcome lab-grown diamond producers.

The Gemological Institute of America, the foremost diamond research and grading body, acknowledges that these are in fact diamonds. The synthetic diamonds do have some differences that only a jeweler would be able to detect, such as different growth patterns and a lack of inclusions. Considered flaws, having diamonds without inclusions will never diminish the value. Man made diamonds are still, just a small twinkle of the diamond market and will not be mass consumed like natural stones until a few years from now.

Synthetic Diamond Facts:

• Most of lab-grown diamonds are one carat or smaller, though you can get stones up to 2 carats.
• Colorless stones are rarer in synthetics than in nature, whereas colored stones are rarer among natural diamonds.

The current economic state has shown a major shift in how consumers spend, shop and approach luxury goods, which might be a significant plus for this new market of diamonds. One thing I’m sure will never change, diamonds be it real or lab-created will still and always, be a girl’s best friend!

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