Drop The Diamond For Another Gemstone
Consider Diamond Alternatives
Other Gemstones
An engagement ring does not have to have a diamond as its center pieces. There are other gemstones such as sapphires, emeralds, and rubies, besides diamonds that are used for engagement rings. However, if you decide to go with a non-traditional engagement ring and use another gemstone instead of a diamond, make sure the other gemstone hard enough to hold up to being worn everyday.
A gemstone’s hardness is graded on the Mohs scale. When choosing a gemstone for an engagement ring that will be worn everyday, anything lower than an 8.0 on the Mohs scale is unsuitable. Softer and less durable gemstones like pearls and opals are poor choices for an engagement ring.
Man-Made Diamonds
Man-made diamonds, also called synthetic, lab-created, manufactured, lab-grown, or cultured, are true diamonds. Although not formed by nature, man-made diamonds share the chemical, physical and optical qualities of mined diamonds and are less expensive. Like a real diamond, a man-made diamond is carbon crystallized at extremely high temperatures and pressures. Man-made diamonds have been around since the 1950s and have been used mainly in industrial purposes. But in recently years, advances in the process of glowing diamonds have produced gem quality diamonds.
Most of the lab-grown diamonds produced today are still one carat or smaller. Colored diamonds are more common among synthetic diamonds and colorless stones are rare. The prices of man-made diamonds are expected to decline as production increases. Two companies that make synthetic diamonds are Apollo and Gemesis.
Diamond Simulates
Not to be confused with man-made or laboratory-grown diamonds, simulates or imitations diamonds are not diamonds at all. Diamond simulates are made of other materials such as zirconium oxide (cubic zirconia) or silicon carbide (moissanite). The best example is cubic zirconia (CZ) which has been around since since 1976. Moissanite is a newer creation coming onto the market in the late 1990s. Currently, only on company makes moissanite.
CZ and other imitation diamonds do not have the same properties as natural diamonds and are usually very cheap compared to natural or man-made diamonds. A cubic zirconia of the same size as a natural diamond is heavier. The CZ will weigh about 1.6 times more than the diamond because the zirconium oxide is denser than the crystallized carbon of a diamond. A CZ is softer than diamonds, scoring an 8.3 on the Mohs scale. Moissanite comes closer to a real diamond. It scores a 9.25 on the Mohs scale but it cannot quite compete with a diamond’s colorless quality.
The similarities of CZ to a real diamond are so remarkable that even a jeweler or gemologist can’t always tell the difference when viewed with the naked eye. One difference between a CZ and a real diamond is that cubic zirconias are excellent insulators of heat, where as diamonds are good conductors of heat. Tests with the right equipment will be able to pick out a CZ from real diamonds.
Irish Claddagh Ring
The Claddagh ring is a traditional Irish ring and custom believe to have originated in the 17th century outside the Irish city of Galway in the fishing village of Claddagh. The ring is given in as a symbol of promise and engagement but also has the added meaning of friendship.
Claddaghs are still worn today, primarily by those of Irish heritage, as both a cultural symbol and as engagement and wedding rings. However, the Claddagh ring has become popular with many non-Irish couples due to the tradition and meaning behind it.
Simple Gold Band
Consider a nicely carved band in gold can usually be found for under $200.
Other Tips to Save Money Buying An Engagement Ring: Engagement Ring On The Cheap, Engagement Ring For Less, Save Money When Buying The Diamond, Drop The Diamond For Another Gemstone
New Age Diamonds
The New Age Diamonds Company is a Russian manufacturer of synthetic diamonds. Using the high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) process, the laboratory produces gem-quality synthetic diamonds.
New Age Diamonds uses a unique marketing approach in Japan where “Heart-in Baby Diamonds” are cultivated from newborn baby hair. This is just one of many commemorative New Age Diamonds that are custom made from the hair of people or fur of pets, either living or dead.
The company does not market its synthetic diamonds as an alternative to natural, mined diamonds, but as a commemorative item in the form of a cultivated diamond. Unlike other “mass produced” man-made or synthetic diamonds which are usually marketed as being cheaper than natural diamonds, New Age Diamonds command a higher price that natural diamonds.
New Age Diamonds make diamonds in a variety of colors with yellows being the least expensive and Deep Red the most expensive.
Learn more about New Age Diamonds at the company’s website: www.newagediamonds.com
Apollo Diamond
Apollo Diamond, Inc., founded in 2000, has its headquarters in Framingham, and diamond making facility in Boston, MA. Apollo Diamond uses a modified version of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to grow their nearly flawless, colorless, single crystal diamonds, which the company first offered to consumers in 2003. Apollo Diamond will soon be selling blue, pink and black diamonds as well. Apollo also produces diamond wafers and crystals for the optoelectronics and nanotechnology industries, in addition to synthetic diamonds to the consumer diamond market.
The synthetic diamonds produced by Apollo match or exceed the purity and beauty of the finest naturally mined diamond. Apollo synthetic diamonds are so much like mined diamonds that even machines developed by the diamond industry to distinguish synthetic from natural diamonds can have trouble telling them apart.
Learn more about Apollo Diamond, Inc. at the company’s website: www.apollodiamond.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Chatham
Chatham
Chatham has been making synthetic rubies, sapphires, alexandrites, and opals for over 60 years and has recently creating synthetic diamonds using the high pressure, high temperature process. Chatham diamonds come in shades of yellow, pink and blue.
Learn more about Chatham cultured diamonds at the company’s website: www.chatham.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Adia Diamonds
Adia Diamonds
Adia Diamonds, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, uses the high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) process to make gem-quality synthetic diamonds. The Adia brand of synthetic diamonds are make in a laboratory in Europe and then cut in Antwerp, Belgium. Currently, Adia diamonds are available through its only retail partner, Pearlman’s Jewelers, and online at their website: www.adiadiamonds.com. Adia Diamonds’ laboratory-created diamonds come in white, yellow and blue colors.
Learn more about Adia Diamonds at the company’s website: www.adiadiamonds.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Synthetics Diamonds
Synthetic diamonds, also called lab-grown diamonds, lab-created diamonds, manufactured diamonds and cultured diamonds, have been around for decades. General Electric has been producing synthetic diamonds for industrial purposes for years. But until recent technological developments, these industrial diamonds were well below gem-quality and were too small to be cut for use in jewelry. Twenty-first century technology made it possible to produce pure, colorless laboratory grown diamonds that are virtually indistinguishable from mined diamonds, but cost much less than natural diamonds of similar quality.
Synthetic diamonds has all the same physical, chemical and optical qualities of natural diamonds. The only difference is that natural diamonds are formed hundreds of miles below the surface of the Earth, under high temperature and pressure over millions of years, and synthetic diamonds are formed under the same temperature and pressure conditions in a laboratory in only days. High quality synthetic diamonds look so much like real diamonds that they can only be detected using infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray spectroscopy or other specialized testers.
Natural diamonds can be completely colorless and colored diamonds are actually rare. However, most synthetic diamonds will have a slightly yellowish hue to them and color synthetic diamonds are easier to make than colorless ones.
Synthetic gem-quality diamonds are created using one of two different methods, which will create slightly different types of man-made diamonds.
One method is High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT), which simulate the conditions that create natural diamonds. The HPHT method uses large and heavy presses produce high pressures and high temperatures to compress carbon material to create diamonds. HPHT, pinoneered in the 1950’s by General Electric (GE), is the first method developed to produce synthetic diamonds and is still the most widely used method today due to its relative low cost.
The other method is the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, originally developed in the late 1980’s, uses a chemical reaction to rain carbon on top of a seed diamond to grow a real diamond layer by layer. The synthetic diamond is then separated from the seed.
Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds and LifeGem are some of the laboratory grown synthetic diamonds currently available on the market. General Electric, Sumitomo Electric, and De Beers also make synthetic diamonds – but these diamonds are used for industrial purposes and not used for the jewelry business.
Here is an overview of these synthetic diamonds currently on the market: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds and LifeGem.
Find out about Diamond Simulants:
Man-Made Diamonds
If you are considering a man-made diamond as an alternative to a mined diamond for the center piece of an engagement ring, you have some very nice options available to you on the market. Even if you are only looking to buy a real diamond, it would be a good idea to educate yourself about man-made diamonds. The more educated you are about diamonds – mined or man-made – the easier time you will have in buying the best diamond for your money. Here is some information to help you decide on the type of man-made diamond that is best for you.
Man-made diamonds can be divided into two distinct categories: synthetic diamonds and diamond simulants.