Lab Grown Diamonds: The Truth Nobody Is Telling You

There's a version of this conversation that happens in jewellery stores every day. Someone asks about lab grown diamonds. The jeweller pauses just long enough. Then comes the answer, carefully worded, designed to steer you back toward something mined.

We're not going to do that.

They're real diamonds. Full stop.

A lab grown diamond is chemically, physically, and optically identical to a diamond pulled from the earth. Same carbon structure. Same hardness (10 on the Mohs scale - the hardest naturally occurring substance). Same brilliance, same fire, same light return.

The only difference is where it came from.

When a gemologist looks at a lab grown diamond under a microscope, they cannot tell it apart from a mined one without specialist equipment. The diamond itself doesn't know where it was made. It just sits there, catching light, doing what diamonds do.

How they're made

Underground, a diamond forms over billions of years under extreme heat and pressure. In a lab, that process is replicated - just faster.

There are two methods. HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) recreates the conditions deep in the earth. CVD (Chemical Vapour Deposition) grows the diamond layer by layer from a carbon-rich gas. Both result in a real diamond crystal. Both are used by reputable growers. The end result is graded by the same institutions - including IGI, which certifies ours - using the same 4C criteria: cut, colour, clarity, carat.

"But do they hold their value?"

This is the question people are told to ask. It implies that mined diamonds hold their value well. They don't, particularly.

Try selling a mined diamond ring back to a jeweller. The resale market for diamonds - mined or lab grown - is not a savings account. If you buy a diamond expecting to profit from it, that's a different conversation entirely.

What a diamond is, for most people, is a piece they'll wear for the rest of their life. A marker of a moment. Something passed down. On that measure, a lab grown diamond performs identically — because it is identical.

The price difference

Lab grown diamonds cost significantly less than mined ones. Sometimes 60–80% less for the same carat, cut, colour, and clarity.

That's not a red flag. It's supply and demand. Mining is restricted. Growing isn't. The scarcity that once drove diamond prices was — at least partly — manufactured. Lab grown diamonds have made that visible, and buyers are choosing accordingly.

What it means practically: you can buy a 2ct lab grown diamond for the price of a 0.7ct mined stone with the same grade. The light return is the same. The certificate says the same things. The ring looks, in every way that matters, the same.

The environmental angle (honestly)

You'll see lab grown diamonds marketed as the sustainable choice. The truth is more complicated, and we'd rather tell you that than use it as a selling point we can't fully stand behind.

Lab grown diamonds require significant energy to produce — the CVD and HPHT processes are energy intensive. Some growers run on renewable energy. Many don't. The picture isn't clean, and the industry hasn't standardised environmental reporting in a way that lets you verify claims easily.

What we can say: the supply chain is shorter and more transparent. There are no mines, no blasting, no tailings ponds, no communities displaced by extraction. Whether that outweighs the energy footprint depends on the grower and the grid.

It's not a simple "better for the planet" story. But it's not the dirty secret some in the traditional trade imply either.

What the certificate tells you

All our lab grown diamonds are IGI certified. IGI (International Gemological Institute) is one of the most respected gemological labs in the world. The certificate grades the stone independently — we don't write it, the grower doesn't write it, you don't have to take anyone's word for it.

The certificate tells you the carat weight, cut grade, colour grade (D is colourless; we work with D/E), and clarity grade (VS means very slightly included — inclusions invisible to the naked eye). It's the same document you'd receive for a mined diamond. Because it's the same type of stone.

Why we made the choice we made

I started THERESHEIS.jewels with a simple question: what if the engagement ring, the bridal earrings, the piece that marks the most significant moments of your life, didn't come with compromise?

Compromise on quality because you couldn't stretch the budget. Compromise on ethics because you couldn't trace the supply chain. Compromise on size because the stone you really wanted was out of reach.

Lab grown diamonds removed those compromises. A 3ct emerald cut in solid 18ct gold for a price that doesn't require a loan. A bridal stud with enough presence to hold its own in photographs, in memories, for the rest of a life.

We work with IGI-certified stones. We set them in solid 18ct gold. And we back every piece with a 2 year warranty - because what we make should last as long as the moment it was made for.

The real question

The real question isn't "is it a real diamond?" It is.

The real question isn't "will people know?" They won't - not without equipment they don't own.

The real question is what matters to you. And for most people who find their way here, the answer is this: a beautiful stone, set beautifully, that marks something true. The certificate, the light, the gold, the weight of it on your hand.

That's what we make. And it happens to be lab grown.

Browse our IGI certified lab grown diamond rings and earrings — all set in solid 18ct gold, with free engraving and a 2 year warranty.