We set both, at the same labour rate, with the same guarantees. So we have no stake in your answer - which is exactly why clients ask us this question more than any other.
Chemically there is no argument to have. A lab-grown diamond is diamond: the same carbon lattice, the same 10 on the Mohs scale, the same refractive index and dispersion. Nobody can tell the difference by eye, and neither can your jeweller. Identification requires a spectroscopy instrument that reads growth patterns and trace nitrogen, which is why every stone we sell above half a carat arrives with a GIA or IGI report stating plainly which it is.
The difference is price and what price does over time. At the same cut, colour, and clarity, a lab-grown stone currently runs roughly seventy to eighty percent below a natural one. That is a genuine, enormous saving, and it is why a client with a fixed budget can move from a 1.0ct to a 2.0ct centre stone, or keep the natural stone smaller and put the difference into a better cut and a better setting. The second option is the one we usually argue for, because cut is what makes a ring look alive across a room.
The caution on lab-grown is resale, and we would rather say it than let you discover it. Production capacity keeps rising and prices have fallen every year for a decade. Buy a lab-grown stone as jewellery you intend to wear forever, not as an asset. Natural diamonds hold value better, though anyone who tells you a retail diamond is an investment is selling you something.
On ethics, neither category gets a free pass. Natural stones can be traced - we buy Canadian and Botswana Sort origin-tracked rough exclusively, with documentation you can read. Lab-grown stones avoid mining entirely but are energy-intensive to grow, and only some producers run on renewables. We only stock growers who publish their energy source.
The question we ask clients, and it settles it nearly every time: is the size of the stone the thing that will make you happy, or is the origin of the stone the thing that will make you happy? There is no wrong answer. There is only the one that is honestly yours. Book a consultation and we will put both in your hand under the same light.
All journal entries