Lab-Grown Oval Diamonds

Oval is the most requested shape in lab-grown, and the supply reflects it — which means for once you can buy the proportions you want rather than the proportions that happen to be affordable.

That matters more in this shape than most. On mined ovals, a well-cut 1.45 ratio with a clean centre carries a premium, and a lot of buyers quietly settle for a rounder or bow-tied stone to protect the carat weight. Here the ratio costs almost nothing. If you want a long, elegant 1.50, you can simply have one.

Use that freedom on the two things that decide whether an oval looks expensive. Ratio first: pick your number, then filter to it. Bow-tie second: play the 360° video and watch the waist as the stone turns. A small dark band that flickers is normal and attractive; a fixed grey bar across the middle is not, and it will look the same on the hand as it does on screen.

Colour is the place to save. An oval concentrates colour at its ends, but in a white or platinum setting an H reads as white to almost everyone — and at lab prices, G and H are barely apart anyway.