Lab Grown Diamonds: How They’re Made and the Downfall of the Diamond Industry
I’d love to start off this post by saying I think that the diamond industry is a giant scam and their marketing team is genius.
There was a time when we believed the sparkle. I mean, when we looked at that ring…sitting in velvet, behind glass, behind years of expectation…and thought ah yes, this must be love.
A stone, clear as truth, hard as promise, and expensive as devotion. That’s what they told us anyway, that’s what the ads whispered in black-and-white magazines with wide-eyed women and nervous men. If you truly loved that woman, you’d spend 6 months of your salary getting her the ring she deserves to wear for the rest of her life.
Yeah…only, love doesn’t come from mines. The truth has been hiding in a lab all along.
The diamond (the one they told us had to be dug, and crushed, and fought over in the dust of Africa) is being grown now. Quietly and cleanly…without the blood, without the cartel, but also without the story.
The industry that built itself on scarcity, on sparkle, on sentiment…is starting to sweat (as it should).
What Is a Lab Grown Diamond?
Okay, if you’re here than at least you’re a little open-minded. I see so many people online claiming that a lab-grown diamond “isn’t real” and a bunch of nonsense like that. This isn’t cubic zirconia or moissanite. These aren’t a knockoff by any means either.
This is a diamond. I’d like to say it again for those on Facebook trolling in jewelry groups. Lab-grown diamonds are in fact…diamonds. It’s carbon, crystallized. Identical in chemical structure, hardness, fire, and flash. It’s not “like” a diamond…it is one.
The only difference here is that it wasn’t born beneath the Earth, pressed and punished for a billion years. It was grown in a machine, in a clean room, in silence.
And somehow…that silence says more.
How It’s Done: Growing Stardust in a Chamber
There are two main ways we grow diamonds now:
1. High Pressure, High Temperature (HPHT)
This mimics the Earth’s method. Carbon is placed under extreme pressure and heat (over 1,500°C) until it crystallizes into diamond. It's like playing God, but with better lighting.
2. Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)
In this method, a diamond seed is placed in a vacuum chamber. A mix of carbon-rich gases (like methane) is introduced and zapped with microwave energy until the gas breaks apart. Carbon atoms rain down, attaching to the seed, layer by layer.
This is a bit more slow and delicate, but strangely beautiful. Like watching snow form, or a lie melt to slowly expose the truth.
The diamond industry (specifically, the mined one) is a storytelling empire. The story it sold us was this: diamonds are rare, they’re valuable, diamonds are forever, they mean love.
None of these are entirely true though.
Rarity…hasn’t ever been a thing. How do you think it rains diamonds on other planets? We have warehouses of them here on Earth. All of the value was controlled by cartels, not nature. If you want to get really dramatic for a moment, talking about them being forever? Yeah, sure, maybe…but so is plastic. Romantic, no?
Love is also yours to define. You’re the only one who lives your life, so having anyone else tell you what love is is like deciding you like tomatoes because your sister does. There’s no real correlation.
When lab grown diamonds began entering the market, the industry tried to bury them at first. I mean it was easier to dismiss them and mock them…but now they’re buying them up. The thing is, they know that the shine is shifting.
A Market on Fire (But Not the Good Kind)
Lab diamonds are growing fast…faster than any other segment of the jewelry market. In 2020, they were niche, but in 2025, they’re everywhere.
Engagement rings, earrings, necklaces, fashion jewelry, tech and medical industries, even in semiconductors and high-precision tools. They’re everywhere.
As supply has increased, prices have fallen. What once cost $10,000 now costs $1,500, and the mined diamond industry? Well it’s panicking. I’ve seen it first-hand as someone who spent $500,000 on their engagement ring a decade ago is preaching that their diamond is “real”. The truth is, she’s mad that she wasted all her husband’s money on something that lost all its value.
De Beers, the juggernaut of traditional diamonds, quietly launched their own line of lab-grown stones in 2018. It wasn’t even because they believed in them finally, but because they couldn’t afford not to.
Of course this goes much deeper than economics, it’s about emotion. For generations, a diamond was proof of love, or of status. It showed the world that you were being chosen.
Now though someone can spend a fraction of the price and get a more ethical, more sustainable, just-as-sparkly stone. Suddenly, the $10,000 ring doesn’t whisper “love,” it whispers, you got played for a fool.
If that hurts though, good. I think we’re all ready for a new kind of romance. One that doesn’t mine the planet to say “I do.”
Mined diamonds come with a trail: displaced communities, environmental scars, exploitative labor, and at times…yes…blood.
Lab diamonds come with questions too. These are more about energy use and transparency, but compared to centuries of harm they shine cleaner.
Why I Switched from Fluorescent Bulbs to Incandescent Ones…because sometimes ethical choices are about how we make light.
We’re wired to romanticize and to believe the rare is sacred, we wanted to give meaning to the shiny thing in the box. Love isn’t measured in carats though, and value isn’t forged in caves. It’s forged in honesty, in choice, and intention.
Today, you can buy a lab diamond pretty much everywhere. Mejuri, Vrai, Brilliant Earth, Blue Nile, Clean Origin, hell, even Amazon has hopped on board. They’re being chosen by couples who value ethics, sustainability, and financial sanity. Millennials and Gen Z are especially leading the charge. Money might have something to do with that, but also the age. We’re at the age where people are getting married.
14K Gold Lab Grown Diamond Stud Earrings — timeless, ethical, stunning. I bought these exact ones for my mom for Christmas last year and she loves them, wears them every day!
Handcrafted Lab Grown Diamond Engagement Ring — artfully made, responsibly sourced, heartbreakingly beautiful.
The Death of the Engagement Ring as We Knew It
What happens when the thing we were told to want becomes widely available? Democratically priced? Ethically superior?
The mystique fades and the curtain drops. I think that’s okay. Love isn’t about spending three months’ salary…especially in this economy. I think it’s about saying, I choose you. The future of diamonds is above us.
Pressure Isn’t the Point
We were told diamonds are made under pressure, and that’s totally true…but love isn’t. Love doesn’t need to be heavy. It’s rare enough as it is.
Love isn’t sold in a glass case with fluorescent lighting. Love is carbon, too, but really it’s anything you want it to be. It’s anything that you like and want to wear. It can be grown, not mined and measured not in carats, but in commitment.
All of this to say, wear the lab diamond…or don’t. But know that forever doesn’t sparkle because someone else told you it should.
Forever sparkles when you decide it does.
