Diamond & Jewelry News, Advice and Prices for Consumers
Diamond & Jewelry News, Advice and Prices for Consumers
October 10, 2010
I want to buy my wife a a diamond pendant for our 10th anniversary. Since we are both environmentally conscious, and I don't want to risk accidentally purchasing conflict diamond, I was thinking about going with a synthetic stone. But from what I understand, the synthetic process colors the stones? Is this so? Are there any colorless synthetic diamonds to be found?
October 16, 2010
Well, In the process of manufacturing synthetic diamonds, nitrogen and boron can be trapped in the diamond. This is very similar to the geological process that sometimes occurs in natural diamonds and results in rare fancy colors which render these diamonds more expensive. In the synthetic process, however, these colored diamonds are not more rare than colorless ones. Colorless diamonds can indeed be manufactures synthetically, but these diamonds will be smaller than the colored ones.Colorless synthetic diamonds exist. they are not very large, though. You can find a colorless synthetic diamond up to around 1 carat. So if this size is large enough for the pendant you have in mind, there's no problem. If you were thinking about a bigger stone and it is important to you that it is colorless, and that by purchasing it you are not arming the environment or accidentally investing in conflict diamonds, you might consider buying a vintage diamond. There are natural diamonds, and they come in all sizes, have an antique value, but they have been mined a long time ago so you are neither harming the environment nor the miners.
October 15, 2010
they exist but they are more rare than the colored ones due to nitrogen traces that occur in the synthesizing process known as HPHT that these diamonds go through. Colorless synthetic diamonds are available but they are much smaller than some of the colored synthetic diamonds available. A yellow or blue diamond pendant can beautiful! I say go with a blue synthetic stone.
