Cultured or Mined diamonds, that is the question.
Cultured diamonds are also known as Synthetic diamonds or Man made diamonds. The Term Cultured can be misleading to the consumer so it must be backed up by the terms Synthetic or Man made. These types of diamond are grown in a laboratory whereas mined diamonds are found underground. They are identical, however cultured diamonds are created from the same diamond chips of a mined diamond. This is why a lot of jewellers cannot tell the difference. The only way you can tell them apart is by getting international laboratories to do tests on them. As they have specialised equipment to do so.
Eco Friendly.
Cultured diamonds benefit the environment. Whereas mined diamonds need digging, crushing, dissolving and the removal of tons of rocks. Whereas cultured diamonds are lab grown so they only need a small amount of graphite and electricity. An example of a cultured diamond is a product Moissanite that attempts to replicate a diamond. There are different kinds of diamonds found in the world and man made diamonds are now recommended.
Cultured diamonds can take up to approximately 100hrs to grow and can be as a large as 2 carats. They take less time to produce which lowers the costs to around 80 percent compared to that of mined diamond.
Diamond mining companies might have to change their marketing strategies to promote mined diamonds. Since man-made diamonds are growing in the jewellery market.
“Man-made diamonds make a real threat to the diamond mining industry. People give preference to what doesn’t make a threat to their budget which will meet their demands”
Chairman of the Rapaport Group.
The majority of the public who buy diamonds have no idea what cultured diamonds are, as they are identical to a mined diamond. Sometimes if you go to a particular jeweller you may purchase a cultured diamond that is more expensive than a mined diamond. As they may not have the full knowledge of where their diamonds came from.
To get round any of these probable circumstances always check the diamond certificate.
