shape
carat
color
clarity

To all the dealers trashing Lab Diamonds

My take after reading this entire thread (yup I trooped through) is that I will only ever use diamonds as melee and only at competitive prices in case the natural melee I paid for is actually lab.

Thank goodness I’m a coloured stone girl! Maybe should run out and buy more unheated blue sapphires :lol:

Hahaha omg you actually went through it all lol. Yeah melee don't really count hahaha I'm glad you're into CS and don't have these issues.
 
Hahaha omg you actually went through it all lol. Yeah melee don't really count hahaha I'm glad you're into CS and don't have these issues.

Good job melees does not count by the logic of @mellowyellowgirl et al, as the ones in my neon pink Sapphire ring are 4.5mm in diameter!

DK :lol-2:
 
Hahaha omg you actually went through it all lol. Yeah melee don't really count hahaha I'm glad you're into CS and don't have these issues.

Haha the super silly thing is that I have two 1+ carat natural diamonds and so read the entire thread to work out if I should offload them in case they’ll be worth like $50 in a few years. Then after reading the entire thread I realise that I didn’t care to make the effort to sell them and I’ll just wear them like trinkets so if they’re worth $50 so be it!

But definitely can’t get pretty unheated sapphires for $50 so was feeling great about my CS habit :lol-2:
 
Good job melees does not count by the logic of @mellowyellowgirl et al, as the ones in my neon pink Sapphire ring are 4.5mm in diameter!

DK :lol-2:

I buy natural melee and trust my sources but really who knows? And I ain’t going to pay to test every single melee. So I figure just bite down for a good price and pretend it’s worthless the moment it comes into my possession! Then wear it lots to bring down cost per wear and I figure I’m ok in the end!
 
I buy natural melee and trust my sources but really who knows? And I ain’t going to pay to test every single melee. So I figure just bite down for a good price and pretend it’s worthless the moment it comes into my possession! Then wear it lots to bring down cost per wear and I figure I’m ok in the end!

Same here!

With my latest Tsavorite ring for example, I requested for 2 separate quotes for natural and LGD melees, and opted for natural as the price difference was insignificant.

I trusted them to use natural, and have not planned to have them tested.

Having said that, I might take the pink Sapphire ring to the friendly pawn shop to see if they can tell the difference with their tester. I raised this issue with them before, can't remember their answer how they can distinguish between natural and LGD. However, they trust me with my "good stuff" as they call them.

DK :lol-2:
 
My take after reading this entire thread (yup I trooped through) is that I will only ever use diamonds as melee and only at competitive prices in case the natural melee I paid for is actually lab.

Thank goodness I’m a coloured stone girl! Maybe should run out and buy more unheated blue sapphires :lol:

I’m encouraging you to do this and post lots of pics. I can’t decide which of your gorgeous, large sapphires I love better. The lighter cornflower blue or the royal blue.
 
Informative diagram. A picture really can be worth a thousand words.

I think that’s a great diagram. I’d love to see one with the Earth replaced with a diamond mine. Maybe so that it would have more of an industrial look, like the picture representing diamonds grown in the lab. But that is a great diagram regardless. I appreciate you taking the time to create it.
 
I think that’s a great diagram. I’d love to see one with the Earth replaced with a diamond mine. Maybe so that it would have more of an industrial look, like the picture representing diamonds grown in the lab. But that is a great diagram regardless. I appreciate you taking the time to create it.

I'd take a kimberlite pipe diamond mine over the 100's of Chinese / Indian coal mines they use to fuel the electricity to power the synthetic diamond factories....

1737898422237.png

1737898567293.png
 
Informative diagram. A picture really can be worth a thousand words.

I'd take a kimberlite pipe diamond mine over the 100's of Chinese / Indian coal mines they use to fuel the electricity to power the synthetic diamond factories....

1737898422237.png

1737898567293.png

Perhaps a graphic with both mines you referenced? Although what DejaWiz created is great.
 
My take after reading this entire thread (yup I trooped through) is that I will only ever use diamonds as melee and only at competitive prices in case the natural melee I paid for is actually lab.

Thank goodness I’m a coloured stone girl! Maybe should run out and buy more unheated blue sapphires :lol:

VaderImpressive.jpeg
 
I asked for FL melee for recent Emerald pendant so i can test/confirm they're Nat with long wave UV pen light...
1737895808535.png

I so fully approve of this (beautiful)!
 
I read the first 6 pages, poured myself a glass of wine and said eff it, clean and sparkly diamonds for the win. I'll see how the dust settles.
 
Random thought (and don’t smack me my CS friends): Why does no one go on the CS forum to badger us about our CS and how we should all be buying lab CS for a few hundred?
 
I read the first 6 pages, poured myself a glass of wine and said eff it, clean and sparkly diamonds for the win. I'll see how the dust settles.

Would you buy imperial jadeite if they could make it in a lab? Imagine a full bangle!!!

Would I?…….. I am not sure!
 
Perhaps a graphic with both mines you referenced? Although what DejaWiz created is great.

Deja showed the cut and polished finished version... Which is prettier @ Rough ?

The HTHP machines can't reach the heat/pressure of the Earth's Mantle so they grow cuboctahedra and don't have Trigons...
And the CVD synths are like couple hundred layers of shellac with chocolate sprinkles....
1737910418153.png

1737909597242.png
 
Last edited:
Deja showed the cut and polished finished version... Which is prettier @ Rough ?

The HTHP machines can't reach the heat/pressure of the Earth's Mantle so they grow cuboctahedra and don't have Trigons...
And the CVD synths are like couple hundred layers of shellac with chocolate sprinkles....
1737910418153.png

1737909597242.png

I do love trigons and growth patterns. Here's a microscope photo of the patterns on the natural on the edge of my grandmother's 1928 engagement diamond. They're squares, not trigons--why?

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.44 PM #3.jpg
Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.46 PM #2.jpg

A more zoomed-out view, for context:

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.25 PM.jpg

And the entire ring:

IMG_8810.jpg

(I know this is off topic, but hey, this entire thread is endlessly off topic!)
 
I do love trigons and growth patterns. Here's a microscope photo of the patterns on the natural on the edge of my grandmother's 1928 engagement diamond. They're squares, not trigons--why?

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.44 PM #3.jpg
Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.46 PM #2.jpg

A more zoomed-out view, for context:

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.25 PM.jpg

And the entire ring:

IMG_8810.jpg

(I know this is off topic, but hey, this entire thread is endlessly off topic!)

That's fascinating! My (totally amateur) theory is that an octahedron viewed square-on to a corner looks like a square. Normal trigons appear to have mainly (only?) octahedron faces. So if you etched octahedron faces into a cube face of a diamond crystal, you would get a 'square' pit. This GIA note suggests the same story.

If this story is true, the square pit in your diamond is revealing the orientation of the diamond lattice. This is why I like natural stones...
 
Random thought (and don’t smack me my CS friends): Why does no one go on the CS forum to badger us about our CS and how we should all be buying lab CS for a few hundred?

Hmmmm, good question.

To date, I have only set one lab stone, a Ruby, and I used Moissanite and Rhodium-plated silver in order to keep the cost down.

I just can't justify spending lots on settings for lab CS, even though they are technically the same as their natural/earth-mined equivalent in terms of chemical composition.

DK :confused:
 
@mellowyellowgirl @dk168 why is it that you don’t believe lab rubies and sapphires are equal to earth-mined rubies and sapphires? What is it about the science that makes you feel that way? Why do you view lab grown rubies and sapphires as costume jewelry?










I’ll see myself out. :lol-2:o_O
 
@mellowyellowgirl @dk168 why is it that you don’t believe lab rubies and sapphires are equal to earth-mined rubies and sapphires? What is it about the science that makes you feel that way? Why do you view lab grown rubies and sapphires as costume jewelry?










I’ll see myself out. :lol-2:o_O

Can't answer that, and I know it is not logical.

I am guessing they have been around for a lot longer than LGDs; and have been used in more affordable mall/B&M jewellery for longer. Hence I associate them with lower end jewellery, rightly or wrongly.

DK :confused2:
 
I do love trigons and growth patterns. Here's a microscope photo of the patterns on the natural on the edge of my grandmother's 1928 engagement diamond. They're squares, not trigons--why?

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.44 PM #3.jpg

That inclusion is so cool! What an amazing closeup of a natural. I never thought of them in that perspective. Sticking to off topic, one of the melee in my great-grandma's oec ring is phosphorescent, and one night I blasted it with the UV before bed to see how long it would glow, and fell asleep before it went out (so, more than 5-10 minutes). I kept thinking- they probably never had a clue in her day.

Those are the things that make natural diamonds more favored to me.
 
Good job melees does not count by the logic of @mellowyellowgirl et al, as the ones in my neon pink Sapphire ring are 4.5mm in diameter!

DK :lol-2:

LOL I have multiple rings with 4-5mm center stones :)

Random thought (and don’t smack me my CS friends): Why does no one go on the CS forum to badger us about our CS and how we should all be buying lab CS for a few hundred?

If somebody does, I will go over there and snark, too.

I do love trigons and growth patterns. Here's a microscope photo of the patterns on the natural on the edge of my grandmother's 1928 engagement diamond. They're squares, not trigons--why?

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.44 PM #3.jpg
Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.46 PM #2.jpg

A more zoomed-out view, for context:

Photo on 8-17-20 at 1.25 PM.jpg

And the entire ring:

IMG_8810.jpg

(I know this is off topic, but hey, this entire thread is endlessly off topic!)

@glitterata your stone is cool.

Random diamond topic thread sounds fun.

Anybody care to venture a guess why my dark brown pink goes straight black sometimes? It’s the coolest effect. On another thread, we were hypothesizing that parts of the internal graining are at 90 degrees to each other so it is like polarized sunglasses.

IMG_3666.jpeg
 
@mellowyellowgirl @dk168 why is it that you don’t believe lab rubies and sapphires are equal to earth-mined rubies and sapphires? What is it about the science that makes you feel that way? Why do you view lab grown rubies and sapphires as costume jewelry?










I’ll see myself out. :lol-2:o_O

Haha I only you’re joking but I went off to have a think because I find it interesting!

I think maybe it dates back to my experiences with lab CS. Growing up we were quite poor but I remember being treated to 1-2 special rings with cubic zirconia and lab stones by my mother. Gold was not that expensive in those days so the ring was 18k set with the cheap stones

When I was again a poor university student I would shop at our mall stores during sale periods. You could get 9k rings and pendants with cubic zirconia, created rubies, emeralds etc for about $75aud each. This was about 20-25 years.

So there has just been a looooooooong period of time where lab CS are just absolutely worthless, something you pick up for nominal amounts whereas there’s a whole complicated market for natural stones with heat trade offs, wonky cuts, colours, inclusions etc. Chemically they might be the same but value and appearance wise they aren’t. And they haven’t been for 3 decades so I don’t think people are going to start to treat them the same any day now.

I think that’s why I’m not buying anymore diamonds in the future. With the labs flooding the market I think it can go either way. Either the naturals do maintain their status as the superior product like natural sapphires and emeralds or they’ll tank to the level of labs and all diamonds are going to be these cheap stones that you can buy easily. Not that I buy anything as an investment but I’m not keen on buying something that could be worth $50 in a few years! I’ll wait to buy it for $50 if I need it in the future:lol:
 
I asked for FL melee for recent Emerald pendant so i can test/confirm they're Nat with long wave UV pen light...
1737895808535.png

Love! I want to make something with SBF melee too
 
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Top