You have probably heard a few things about lab grown diamonds by now. That they are not real. That they are basically cubic zirconia. That they will not hold their value. That accepting one means accepting less.
Most of what you have heard is wrong. And the part that is not wrong deserves a more honest conversation than the jewelry industry has ever really been willing to have.
So here is everything. The science, the ethics, the price, the resale question nobody wants to answer, and the reason SEVN made the choice we did. No agenda. Just the full picture.
First. What a Diamond Actually Is.
Strip away everything you have been told about diamonds and what you have left is carbon. The sixth element. The same element that makes up roughly 18% of your own body. The same element in every living thing that has ever existed.
What makes a diamond a diamond is not what it is made of. It is how those carbon atoms are arranged. Under extreme heat and pressure, deep inside the Earth's mantle, carbon atoms lock together into a structure so tight and so ordered that it becomes the hardest natural substance on Earth. That arrangement is what creates the hardness. That arrangement is what creates the way it catches and scatters light. That arrangement is everything.
A diamond forms over billions of years, roughly 100 miles beneath the Earth's surface. It reaches us by surviving an ancient volcanic eruption traveling upward at around 80 miles per hour, depositing diamonds in formations deep in the Earth's crust called kimberlite pipes. That is where mining comes in. The diamonds that exist today are the ones that moved fast enough to outrun their own chemistry. At slower speeds, they would have turned back into graphite before reaching the surface.
Every diamond you have ever seen survived that journey.
A Lab Grown Diamond Is the Same Thing. Grown Differently.
This is the part most people get wrong, and it matters.
A lab grown diamond is not cubic zirconia. It is not moissanite. It is not simulated or synthetic in the way those words are commonly understood. It is a diamond. Chemically, physically, and optically identical to one pulled from the earth. The same carbon. The same structure. The same hardness, the same way it holds and throws light.
The only difference is origin.
In a laboratory, scientists recreate the conditions that form diamonds inside the Earth, either through extreme heat and pressure around a diamond seed crystal, or by flowing carbon rich gas through a plasma chamber and allowing carbon atoms to settle onto a seed plate one atomic layer at a time. Both processes take weeks rather than billions of years. Both produce a real diamond.
In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission updated its definition of a diamond, removing the word "natural" and officially recognizing that lab grown diamonds have essentially the same optical, physical, and chemical properties as mined stones. The Gemological Institute of America has been grading lab grown diamonds since 2007, evaluating them on cut, color, clarity, and carat weight, the same criteria used for every diamond.
One thing worth knowing: sellers are legally required to disclose when a diamond is lab grown. Which means if you are buying from a reputable jeweler, you will always know exactly what you are getting.
The Questions You Are Actually Asking
Will it sparkle the same?
Yes. The sparkle of a diamond comes entirely from how light interacts with its crystal structure. Lab grown diamonds have the same crystal structure as mined diamonds. There is no visual difference.
Will it get cloudy or turn yellow over time?
No. This is one of the most persistent myths and it has no scientific basis. Diamonds, lab grown or mined, do not cloud, yellow, or degrade under normal wear. What makes any diamond look dull over time is surface buildup from lotions, soaps, and oils. The stone itself does not change. Clean it occasionally and it stays exactly as it was.
Can anyone tell?
Only with specialized laboratory equipment that reads microscopic growth patterns invisible to the human eye. Your friends cannot tell. A jeweler looking at it in a case cannot tell. The stone looks, behaves, and tests as a diamond because it is one.
Why are they so much less expensive if they are the same diamond?
Most people assume the price difference means there is a quality difference.
Lab grown diamonds are less expensive because of supply. A mined diamond takes billions of years to form and requires large scale excavation to reach. That scarcity, and a century of the industry controlling how many stones reached the market at any given time, is what drove prices to where they are.
A lab grown diamond can be produced in weeks. More supply means lower prices. The diamond itself is identical. What you are paying less for is not the stone. It is the scarcity, and the story built around it.
Is a lab grown diamond the same as moissanite or cubic zirconia?
No. And this is one of the most common and most frustrating misconceptions.
Moissanite and cubic zirconia are diamond simulants. They are stones designed to look like diamonds but made of entirely different materials, with different chemical structures, different hardness, and different optical properties. A trained eye can spot the difference. Neither is a diamond.
A lab grown diamond is none of those things. It is not a simulant. It is not trying to look like a diamond. It is a diamond, made of the same carbon, with the same structure, the same hardness, and the same light performance as a mined stone.
What would I say if someone asks if it's real?
Tell them yes.
Because it is.
A lab grown diamond is a real diamond. Not a simulation, not an imitation, not a compromise. The same carbon, the same structure, the same hardness, the same sparkle. The only difference is where it came from, and that is a difference you should feel proud of, not defensive about.
You chose a real diamond with a transparent origin, a lower environmental footprint, and a price that made sense to you. That is not something to explain away. That is something to stand behind.
And if someone pushes further and wants to know if it came from the ground? Yes, you can tell them it was lab grown. And then you can tell them it is chemically, physically, and optically identical to a mined diamond. That even the most experienced gemologist cannot tell the difference without specialized laboratory equipment. The FTC officially recognizes lab grown diamonds as having the same properties as mined diamonds.
Or you can simply say: yes, it's real. Because it is.
The Ethical Picture, Honestly
This is where a lot of brands overclaim or oversimplify. We are not going to do that, because the honest answer is more interesting and more important than the easy one.
The concerns around mined diamonds are real. Conflict diamonds, often called blood diamonds, refer to stones mined in war zones and sold to finance armed conflict. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was established in 2003 to reduce their flow into the market. It has done that, to a degree. But it has also been heavily criticized by the very organizations that helped build it. Global Witness, one of its architects, withdrew in 2011, citing the process's failure to address broader human rights abuses in mining communities. A conflict free certification covers a very narrow definition of conflict. It does not cover worker exploitation, environmental destruction, or corruption.
Lab grown diamonds have a radically shorter, more transparent supply chain than any mined diamond. You know the category of origin. There are no opaque middlemen, no multi-country handoffs, no certification system with known loopholes. That matters.
On the environmental side, the picture is nuanced and we want to be straight with you. Diamond mining causes significant land disruption, ecosystem damage, and water usage. Lab grown production requires substantial energy, and if that energy comes from fossil fuels, the environmental comparison gets complicated. What we can say accurately is that lab grown diamonds eliminate the physical destruction of mining entirely. Their footprint depends on how and where they are produced. It is not a perfect story. But it is a more transparent one.
The Price Conversation
Lab grown diamonds cost dramatically less than mined diamonds of equivalent quality. A one carat lab grown diamond today can cost anywhere from a fraction to a tenth of what a comparable mined stone would run. The gap widens significantly as stones get larger. What you are getting for that lower price is not a lesser diamond. It is the same diamond, without the century of artificial scarcity built into the price.
This mattered enormously to us when building SEVN. Real fine jewelry, solid gold with real diamonds, had for too long been something only certain women could access. The price difference makes it possible to put a genuinely beautiful, genuinely real diamond on the hand of someone who will wear it every day, not save it for occasions that feel important enough. That was always the goal. Jewelry that lives with you, not in a box.
The Resale Question, Told Truthfully
This is the one nobody in the jewelry industry wants to answer honestly. So we will.
Mined diamonds typically resell for a fraction of what you paid at retail. Lab grown diamonds typically resell for less. For the vast majority of people buying jewelry, neither is a meaningful financial investment. The honest truth is that almost any diamond purchased at retail is worth significantly less the moment you walk out of the store, mined or grown.
Here is the framing that actually matters. You will spend less on a lab grown diamond. You will lose less in absolute dollars if you ever sell it. And if you are buying a diamond because it is beautiful, because it means something, because you will reach for it every single day, then the resale conversation is somewhat beside the point.
Why SEVN Chose Lab Grown
Same diamond. Grown with intention. Not a compromise, a conviction. Available to more women, with a supply chain we can actually stand behind.
Fine jewelry was never meant to sit in a box. At SEVN, it is designed to live with you, through the ordinary days and the defining ones, becoming part of your story rather than waiting for one.
It is a choice we are proud of.
Inspired by real women. Intentionally designed. Crafted in solid gold and lab grown diamonds. Made to be lived in. To mean something.
