I wanted to talk a little about the difference between lab grown and natural diamonds. When you order from Baroque++, you may choose natural or man-made. I wanted to go over some things to consider when considering between them.
Natural Stones:
Natural stones come from the earth, formed over billions of years. They are mined, and many of them come from Africa. Throughout history they have been a store of value and luxury, but now the prices are falling as lab diamonds compete with them.
Pros:
Natural diamonds are expensive, so they will always be a luxury. Diamond mining has a beneficial impact on African communities, such as in Botswana, where they enjoy universal education and free health care.
Some people think African diamonds and they think of "blood diamonds", diamonds extracted by unscrupulous regimes using exploitative labor. Conflict diamonds are thought to be a small percentage of diamonds, and it is estimated that 96% of raw diamonds are conflict-free. There is work in Europe to create a system to certify the origin of diamonds.
When it comes to non-diamond gemstones, there is an entire planet of variety. You can find some really unique patterns is stones like turquoise, lapis, opals, and pearls that would not be found in a laboratory. Some stones are not economic as synthetic, like the citrines I use in my Salva Ukraini earrings.
Cons:
Natural diamonds are expensive, by many times. Natural diamonds can retail for ten times the price of lab-grown diamonds, or more. Also, natural diamonds are all different, they are not standardized. While lab-grown diamonds are grown in controlled environments and can achieve exceptional quality, natural diamonds may have natural inclusions or coloration, making flawless natural diamonds extremely expensive.
Man-Made Stones:
Synthetic stones are manufactured in a factory, typically China, and Russia (but they are sanctioned now), where they are heated in a high-temperature pressure chamber over the course of months to generate batches of diamonds. Lab diamonds are not imitation diamonds, they are real diamonds; and while they can be distinguished from natural stones under a microscope, they are the same chemical formula as natural stones, with the same hardness and durability guarantees you would expect from a natural stone.
Pros:
Lab grown stones are extremely economical. They are also standardized, or "calibrated", making it easy for me, as a jeweler, to find precisely the correct diameter and carat weight to set, so I love working with them, they will always match. For sapphires and rubies, you can select the shade of the stone with a color swatch. Unlike natural stones, which vary by color and clarity, man-made stones, because they are grown in controlled environments, they are grown free of occlusions and coloration, so it is easier to find flawless lab diamonds than natural diamonds. If you primarily love diamonds or moissanites for the aesthetics, the color, the durability, lab grown diamonds are just as good looking, or even better, than natural diamonds.
Some stones are only found synthetic, particularly moissanite, and also cubic zirconia, but I don't sell that to customers.
Cons:
Man-made stones are very cheap. In the US lab-grown stones cost around $200 a carat wholesale. I have heard that the cost $10/carat to produce in China, so there is hundreds, even thousands of times the markup. It is my opinion that prices will continue to fall until they are roughly on-par with cubic zirconia, moissanite, or rhinestones. In ten years, you will see high fashion encrusted with lab-grown diamonds. Which is great if you love diamonds for their beauty and strength! But they will not be a luxury item. The fad of four-carat solitaire lab-grown stones may not hold up well in ten or fifteen years. Some find them gauche now.
Also, lab-grown stones from China are primarily created powered by coal power furnaces, so they have a much higher carbon footprint than natural diamonds. I am very concerned about the environment, so this is a big consideration from me personally.
Another drawback is the selection is limited. You may find sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and sometimes emeralds. But there are many varieties of stone that cannot be lab grown, or are not economic to be man-made, or with the natural textures. These include lapis, turquoise, citrine, amethyst, and pearls. But the stones I work with, typically work with diamonds, moissanite, sapphire, and ruby, can easily be made synthetically.
My Personal Journy Designing my Own Bridal Jewelry.
Let me tell you about my journey with my personal wedding jewelry. I love the art of the ring, the design. At Baroque++, we are also metal-centric. I pride myself in the intricacies of the metal and the intricate flows, and make the gold the focus, not the substrate for the rock on top. My wedding band and my wife's wedding band have no stones.
For my wife's engagement ring I purchased a sapphire from a friend who brought it from his home country. It was a nice stone, but for me it wasn't quite right. Tragically my wife lost her first ring, so I remade it. The second time around I picked out a lab-grown sapphire that was the precise size and color that I wanted. It is perfect, and I saved some money. It is also worthless on its own if I were to resell it, but as my wife's engagement ring, to us it is priceless.
I cannot make the choice for you, and I am agnostic. But while lab-grown diamonds and natural diamonds are chemically the same, how they are made, the process, and the value are completely different. But whether you chose an economic lab diamond or a pricy natural diamond, I will be there to make what sets my designs apart, which is the to use lots of gold and silver metal to incorporate and envelop the stones. In my designs, the metal is not there to hold the stone, it is to carry the artistry and design. Gold is central to my designs, and so far, there is no such thing as synthetic gold.