Lab Diamonds vs Natural Diamonds
Lab-created diamonds offer a brilliant, ethical alternative to mined stones. These stunning gems are chemically and physically identical to natural diamonds, with the same sparkle and durability, but come without the environmental and social concerns associated with traditional mining.
Two primary methods produce these beautiful stones:
High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) replicates the natural conditions deep within the Earth. A diamond seed is placed in carbon and subjected to extreme pressure and temperature, allowing a diamond to crystallize around it over several weeks. Some lab diamonds made via HPHT technology are electrically conductive and can falsely be identified as Moissanite with an electrical "gem tester". However, a trained gemologist can differentiate between lab diamonds and Moissanite via examination of the gems. Moissanites are doubly refractive whereas diamonds, natural and lab, are not, and a jeweler should easily be able to observe this under magnification. Our HPHT diamonds have been independently certified by outside gemologists.
Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) uses a more modern approach. A diamond seed is placed in a chamber filled with carbon-rich gas. When heated, the gas breaks down, and carbon atoms deposit layer by layer onto the seed, gradually building a diamond crystal. Our CVD diamonds have been independently certified by outside gemologists.
Lab-created diamonds represent conscious luxury—they eliminate concerns about conflict financing, reduce habitat destruction, and require significantly less energy and water than mining operations. You can wear these gorgeous stones knowing they were created through innovation rather than extraction, making them a choice you can feel truly good about. They're real diamonds, just with a more thoughtful origin story.
"Freetown"
The story behind why I use lab created diamonds.
The call came on that November morning in 2021. A fuel tanker had exploded in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and the casualties were overwhelming the local hospitals. As a physician volunteering with a medical NGO with contacts in the area, I grabbed my team and ran.
Nothing prepares you for that scale of suffering. Hundreds of people with severe burns, many of them vendors and motorcycle taxi drivers who had rushed to collect leaking fuel. We worked for days straight—debriding wounds, managing fluids, rationing painkillers that ran out too quickly. I held hands with people who wouldn't survive the night.
But something else crystallized too.
Someone noticed my earrings. Simple diamond studs. They told me about the diamond mines upcountry, how blood diamonds shaped their country’s brutal civil war, and how much of the diamond wealth still flows to foreign buyers rather than benefiting ordinary Sierra Leoneans. The stones that could have built hospitals instead fueled one of Africa's most devastating conflicts.
I returned home different. I couldn't unknow what I'd seen or unlearn what I'd understood.
The shift to lab-created diamonds wasn't just a business decision. It was a promise I made to myself in the smoky dawn outside a makeshift burn ward: that beauty doesn't have to cost the earth or its people. That we can choose differently.
And so I did.