Lab created diamonds

[doppelganger]

I just found this forum and this thread was really of interest to me because I recently started doing lots of research on synthetic diamonds and diamond substitutes (simulants). After reading about simulants, or "sims," I have decided that I would much rather have a sim (I prefer CZ) than a diamond. (When the time comes, of course!) For the record, I am a consumer, not a marketer/jeweler/resaler plugging a certain brand of simulant.

 

I wanted to point out a couple things l have learned.

 

1) Synthetic (or man made, or lab created) genuine diamonds are only manufactured by a handful (I think 3) companies. These include Takara, Apollo Diamonds, and Gemesis. Gemesis and Takara currently produce colored diamonds, and Apollo hopes to enter the market with colorless diamonds late this year or early next year. Synthetic diamonds are 100% carbon, as are natural mined diamonds. Synthetic diamonds are physically, optically, and chemically identical to natural mined diamonds. They are still very expensive. Apollo is not yet selling to the public, but I had a chance to purchase through a private sale by invite only. The gems

 

2) Simulated diamonds are things that look like diamonds but are not. They are completely different minerals or gemstones. Examples include cubic zirconia, zircon, white sapphires, moissanite.

 

Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Diamond Nexus Labs sells regular old CZ. They have a bad reputation for being deceitful. They use the word "synthetic" on their website, which is incorrect. You have to really search the website for it, but if you look at the chemical composition of a DNL gemstone, you will see that it is clearly not 100% carbon. If you call them and press them about it, they will tell you the truth, that is is CZ.

 

I've also heard that the photographs on their website are of actual diamonds, and not their product. They do have a good return policy, so if you have already ordered from them and choose not to keep the items, they'll probably take it back without question.

 

CZ is a really great simulant when it is hand cut to ideal proportions and put in a high quality setting. The problem with most CZ is that it is hastily stamped out by machines, not properly polished, and put in crappy settings. CZ hit the market a little hard in the 70s and kind of has a bad rep as cheap and ugly.

 

The truth is, DNL's CZ is okay looking, but for that price, there are much better CZ simulants, like Asha CZ. There is one guy at simstalk.com that bought a DNL engagement ring, and he is happy with it.

 

Sorry, I don't really mean to rain on anyone's parade. It's fine to buy from DNL, I just hate to see people think they are getting something they are not (like a synthetic diamond). I personally think DNL and Asha are a little expensive and prefer interlap.

I was planning on writing a response to this thread, but adnCat said what i wanted to say much better than i could jave said it. nice job adnCat. i was recently checking out takara lab diamonds and loved them. too bad they don't have white diamonds yet. and too bad i already plopped down the $$$$ on a regular out of the ground diamond (at least i got a good price on an ideal cut hearts and arrows though) and proposed with it before really looking into the lab grown diamonds otherwise i would have gone lab created.

 

a diamond is a diamond. just be sure to check out those diamondtalk and pricescope forums and learn as much as you can before you plop down a lot of moneys for the rock. would hate for you to get a big diamond that ends up being a sub par, poorly performing POS.

[adnCat]

Thanks, doppelganger! Yes, Takara and Apollo are racing to get these colorless diamonds to the market. But don't believe the media hype that these things are produced at $5 a carat. It's simply not true. The initial capital and research is really huge, and I know they will be looking to recoup those costs. Apollo's colorless diamonds cost more than blue nile's diamonds right now. I don't think they'll be much cheaper than their mined counterparts until the market is saturated.

 

That's why I'd rather go with sims!