Lab grown, IGI graded
A short chain. Every link on paper.
Every MERVAUX diamond was grown in a reactor, not taken out of the ground. That is a fact about origin, not a claim about virtue.
We can prove five things about every piece on this site. Everything else, we leave unsaid.
No ground broken
Three stages, several weeksThe seed
A sliver of diamond, a fraction of a millimeter thick, goes into the chamber first. Everything grows outward from it, so the finished stone is one continuous crystal.
The growth
Carbon is laid down on that seed under heat and pressure, in a CVD reactor or an HPHT press, over weeks. Nothing is dug, crushed or washed to obtain it.
The report
The rough goes to a cutter, then to IGI, graded on the same scale used for mined stones. That report number belongs to one stone and no other. Reading one takes five minutes.
What changes. What does not.
It changes the origin
No mine, no pit, no tailings. The chain runs laboratory, cutting house, laboratory again, and it is short enough to describe in one sentence.
It does not change the material
Same carbon, same crystal structure, same hardness, same behavior in light. One grading scale covers both, which is why the answer to the obvious question is yes.
It does not change the arithmetic
A lab grown diamond still resells far below what you paid, further below than a mined stone. Buy it to wear, not to hold.
The evidence
What we can prove
The stone
Lab grown, named in the listing title, not buried in a spec table. Loose stones carry an IGI report number with color, clarity and cut grades.
The metal
Solid 14K or 18K gold, or platinum 950, by karat and by weight in grams. Metal weight is listed apart from gross weight.
The piece
Each ring, chain and pair is listed on its own, with its own stone count and total carat weight. A stone and a setting are two decisions.
The document
The report travels with the stone. We would rather you read it than take our word for the grades, so the difference between labs is written up too.
The part usually left out
What we will not claim
- Eco-friendly
- Carbon neutral
- Sustainable
You will not find those three words anywhere on this site. That is deliberate.
Growing a diamond takes a great deal of electricity, and how much that matters depends on which grid the reactor is plugged into. Any brand putting a carbon number in front of you is asking you to take it on faith.
The US Federal Trade Commission has written to lab grown diamond sellers about exactly this, warning them off unqualified claims like eco-friendly and sustainable. We would have held the line without the letter.
What we can stand behind is narrower and firmer: the origin, the report, the karat, the weight, the stone count. Five things, each one checkable, on every page.
Straight answers
Including where the answer is inconvenientAre lab grown diamonds ethical?
They remove mining from the chain, which is the part of the diamond trade most often questioned. That is the difference we can demonstrate. It does not make a finished ring automatically ethical, because labor, energy and metal sourcing all sit further up the chain. We tell you what we can document and stop there.
Are lab grown diamonds real diamonds?
Yes. Same carbon, same crystal structure, same hardness, graded on the same scale by the same laboratories. The difference is where the crystal formed, not what it is. The longer answer is here.
Are lab grown diamonds better for the environment?
Growing a stone uses a lot of electricity, so the honest answer depends on the grid supplying the reactor, and we cannot audit that from where we sit. What we can say is that no ground is broken to obtain the stone. We do not publish carbon figures we would not be able to defend.
Do lab grown diamonds hold their value?
No. They resell far below retail, further below than mined stones, and the gap has kept widening. We would rather you knew that before you spent than after. The numbers are set out here.
How do I know the stone is what you say it is?
Every loose stone carries an IGI report with its own number, and the grades on the product page are the grades on that report. Learn to read one and you will not have to take our word for any of it.
Begin with the stone
Eight cuts, each one graded and documented. Choose a shape, then let us set it into a piece made only for you.
Browse by shape