Jewelry stores keep coming up with these various tests to distinguish real diamonds from simulants. Garrett Payne, a certified gemologist in Phoenix, Arizona explains why. “One of the things that I learned in my undergraduate gemology class is just how difficult it is to separate the real ones from the fakes,” he says. “So, the only reliable way to tell the difference is to take the stone to a reputable jeweler and have him take a look at it.” To be honest, it’s mainly because their businesses are threatened simulants.
Considering synthetic, man-made diamonds look so real, why not try them out? For the modern shopper, there are some great reasons to think about getting a synthetic over a mined diamond. Check out the reasons:
1. Cost – The clearest reason is because diamond simulants are more affordable than natural diamonds. Consider a premier diamond-cut gemstone from Swarovski: a very nice solid gold or platinum setting will be under $1000 but the same cut in a diamond and set in the exact same setting would be approximately $10,000.
2. Clarity – Synthetic diamonds are created in a laboratory and therefore are literally perfect. As a consequence, light catching the stone will not be skewed because flaws and will have more radiance. The same diamond with a higher level of perfection will be incredibly pricey if it possesses the same level of “flawlessness” as a lab-created gem.
3. Color – Alternatives to diamonds don’t have color marks . The finest and most costly diamonds with this high level of quality are colorless, possessing a “D” color rating on the gem scale. Finding a diamond that fits into this category would be difficult and incredibly expensive if you were to compare it to a regular diamond. The types of diamonds many women can afford have yellow undertones and some dark blemishes in the stones.
4. More People Choose to Not Support the Diamond Industry- Ripe with claims of artificial price inflation and leaked documents indicating continued slave labor, some people do not wish to support the industry. Even with the so-called “Kimberly Process” that jewelry stores love to quote, the truth is the majority of diamonds are still products of horrific human rights abuses. The Kimberly Process is just a PR campaign to get people to believe the diamond industry has cleaned up their act when the absolutely have not.
5. People Will Not Know It’s Not a Natural Diamond – There are a lot of ways in which to see if a diamond is real however most of these methods require viewing the gemstone with magnification or doing analytical testing with the loose stone. The better part of society will never be able to tell the difference between real and synthetic is if you have a Swarovski diamond-cut simulant placed in a very nice platinum or 14k gold setting. There is no way of them knowing if it isn’t a real diamond unless the person tells them.
Naturally, it is up to the man or woman to decide if they will buy a lab, man-made diamond or a mined diamond. However, being so close in appearance to a diamond there are a lot of people deciding to go the way of synthetics–not only for financial purposes but also because they are not needing to buy them for the same reasons as they used to.
Julia McKinnon has been an author and professional in the diamond industry for the past ten years. As a former buyer for one of the biggest diamond corporations in the world, she now educates others about the various diamond alternatives on the market. Take the opportunity to read her intriguing insights on man made diamonds on her blog and website.