Cultured Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend
February 22nd, 2007
Click image to view video clip from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”
Better known as “synthetic” through the marketing efforts of the “natural diamond” industry, cultured diamonds are grown more quickly in a lab but are still chemically-authentic. In the same way that cultured pearls grew to account for 95% of the pearl market, the Wall Street Journal recently projected these diamonds to have a prominent impact on the tightly-controlled market now that the technology is able to produce them at gem-level qualities indistinguishable to the naked eye from traditional, mined diamonds.
This is good news to many since traditional diamonds have been criticized for threatening the environment and funding civil wars, this latter point being most-recently addressed in the film Blood Diamond. Luckily for Marilyn, however, these new diamonds will go for just 15% less than the cost of their mined counterparts. While Tiffany’s says they won’t carry them, they are already gaining ground in the American market.
This decision to set prices high seems to follow a trend of making high quality socially-conscious choices more expensive, and therefore more culturally valued and desired. (See previous post on Tesla’s beautifully engineered $100,000 electric sportscar.) Would synthetic diamonds ever be taken seriously if they were sold at a fraction of the cost of “real” diamonds like the cheaper-looking diamond substitute zirconium? Watch out world: Green is going gold.
Link to Wall Street Journal article, “Gem War”
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February 22nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I haven’t seen Blood Diamond, but it’s worth noting that Lord of War talks about blood diamonds and their relevance to the black arms market in Africa. Actually, Lord of War is an amazing movie, so it’s worth seeing for many other reasons.
Oh, and I’m holding out on a Tesla until it uses diamond break pads. That’s some bling right there.
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I’m curious if other cultured gems are coming along? There are a lot of applications for synthetic sapphires, but gem quality sapphires would be great as well!
...I just learned the other day that a Ruby is merely a sapphire (aluminum oxide) with chromium as an impurity!
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Did a little looking around, and while there’s not too much out there, I did find a site selling other cultured gems. While it’s clear these stones do not have the cultural signficance of a diamond, it’s facinating to me that we can make in a lab what it takes nature millions of years to produce. (go us!)
Was also able to find a cultured Ruby making recipe.
Enjoy!