We sell both. Roughly two thirds of our stock is lab-grown and one third natural, which means we have no argument to win here and every reason to give you the version that leads to a purchase you do not regret.
Start with the part that is not in dispute: a lab-grown diamond is a diamond. Same carbon, same crystal structure, same hardness, same refractive index, same behaviour in light. It is not a simulant. Cubic zirconia and moissanite are different materials that imitate diamond; a lab-grown diamond is diamond. No jeweller can tell the two apart by eye, and separating them requires specialist equipment that reads growth patterns and trace elements.
What differs is where the carbon crystallised, how long it took, and what that does to the price.
How they are made
Natural diamonds formed in the mantle over one to three billion years and were carried up by volcanic activity. Lab-grown diamonds are made in weeks, by one of two methods: HPHT, which reproduces the pressure and heat of the mantle, or CVD, which grows the crystal layer by layer from carbon-rich gas. Both produce genuine diamond.
Price: the real difference
For the same weight and grades, a lab-grown diamond costs a fraction of a natural one. Put the other way round, for a fixed budget lab-grown buys you substantially more stone — often two to three times the carat weight at comparable colour and clarity.
The direction of travel matters as much as the current gap. Lab-grown production capacity has grown quickly and prices have fallen steadily for years. There is no sign of that reversing. That has two consequences:
- A lab-grown diamond bought today will very likely be replaceable more cheaply in five years. Buy it to wear, not to hold.
- Resale value is low and falling. Not zero, but not something to build a decision on.
Natural diamonds hold value better because supply is genuinely finite. But we would not call them an investment either, and anyone who does is selling something. The gap between retail price and what a private seller can realise is wide for both categories. The honest framing is: this is a purchase, like a watch or a good coat, not an asset.
Certification
Both are graded on the same scales by the same laboratories, and every stone we sell carries a report from GIA, IGI or HRD. In practice lab-grown stones are more often IGI-graded and natural stones more often GIA-graded — that is a habit of the trade, not a statement about quality. A grading report always states whether the diamond is laboratory-grown, and lab-grown stones carry a laser inscription on the girdle saying so. Nobody can pass one off as the other.
We explain the differences between the three laboratories in this article.
The environmental argument, carefully
This is marketed harder than it deserves in both directions.
Mining moves large volumes of earth and uses significant water and energy, and its record on labour and local impact varies enormously by operation. Growing diamonds also uses a great deal of energy — HPHT and CVD both run at extreme conditions for weeks — and how clean that is depends entirely on the electricity grid where the reactor sits. Independent, comparable, audited numbers are scarce, and most figures quoted by either side originate with people who have a commercial interest in the answer.
Our position: if environmental impact is your deciding factor, ask for specifics about the individual stone rather than accepting a category-level claim. If we cannot answer, we will say so.
Which one should you buy
Lab-grown makes sense if you want the largest, best-looking stone your budget allows; if you would rather have a two carat stone than a one carat one; if you are relaxed about resale; or if you would like a second piece later without doubling the spend.
Natural makes sense if rarity and origin are part of what the object means to you; if you want the value to hold up better over decades; if it is going to be an heirloom that gets handed on; or if the story matters as much as the appearance. None of those are irrational — they are the same reasons people buy vintage watches rather than better new ones.
What we would not do is choose lab-grown purely to buy a much larger stone than the setting or the hand can carry, or choose natural purely because someone implied lab-grown is fake. Neither of those is a good reason.
Where to look
- Lab-grown diamonds — the larger part of our stock
- Natural diamonds
- Compare directly by shape: lab-grown rounds against natural rounds, or lab-grown ovals against natural ovals
- The diamond buying guide if you have not chosen a shape yet
Whichever you choose, it ships free and fully insured anywhere in the world at any order value, comes with its laboratory report, and carries a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects. You have 30 days to return it in original condition with its certificate, with the return leg arranged and paid by you.
