A lab-grown diamond is a diamond. It is pure crystallized carbon with the same chemical composition, the same crystal structure, and the same hardness as a diamond pulled out of the ground. The only difference is where it formed. One grew in the earth over a geological timescale; the other grew in a machine over a few weeks.

That is not a marketing position. It is the position of the US Federal Trade Commission, which removed the word "natural" from its definition of a diamond in 2018, and of the Gemological Institute of America, which says a laboratory-grown diamond "possesses essentially the same chemical, physical and optical properties as its natural counterpart."

So the honest answer to "are they real?" is yes, with one asterisk that has nothing to do with the stone itself and everything to do with what happens if you ever try to sell it. We get to that below, with the numbers, because you should see them before you spend anything.

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What's on this page

1. What a lab-grown diamond actually is
2. Are lab-grown diamonds real diamonds?
3. What a lab-grown diamond is not
4. How lab-grown diamonds are made
5. Can anyone tell the difference?
6. Do lab-grown diamonds pass a diamond tester?
7. How lab-grown diamonds are graded and certified
8. What lab-grown diamonds cost, and why
9. Are lab-grown diamonds better for the environment?
10. Do lab-grown diamonds hold their value?
11. Who a lab-grown diamond suits, and who it doesn't
12. Buying a lab-grown ring
13. Frequently asked questions
14. Sources

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What a lab-grown diamond actually is

A diamond is carbon atoms locked into a particular arrangement — the isometric crystal system — under enormous heat and pressure. That arrangement is what makes a diamond hard, what makes it bend light the way it does, and what makes it a diamond rather than graphite, which is also pure carbon arranged differently.

A lab-grown diamond is that same arrangement, produced in a machine that supplies the same heat and pressure, or supplies carbon in a gas and lets it settle into place atom by atom.

This is not a copy of a diamond, or a stone that resembles one. It is carbon crystallized in the isometric system, which happens to be the full definition of the word.

Measured against each other, a lab-grown and a natural diamond of the same grade give you:

The last row is the only one a buyer ever has to think about, and it is the one that sets the price.

A note on what to call it

The FTC asks sellers to use "laboratory-grown," "laboratory-created," or "[manufacturer name]-created," and to place that wording clearly and near the product description. "Cultured" is permitted only when immediately accompanied, with equal conspicuousness, by one of those three terms.

This matters when you're shopping. A listing that says only "diamond" for a stone that was grown in a lab is not following the FTC's guidance, and the FTC has said describing lab-grown stones merely as "diamonds," without more, would likely mislead consumers. If a retailer is vague about which one you're buying, that tells you something.

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Are lab-grown diamonds real diamonds?

Yes. Three separate authorities say so, independently of each other and of anyone selling the stones.

The FTC. In July 2018 the Commission revised its Jewelry Guides and deleted the word "natural" from the definition of a diamond. The definition now reads: "a mineral consisting essentially of pure carbon crystallized in the isometric system." A lab-grown stone meets that definition completely. This is the single most important fact in the debate, and it is why a seller can call a lab-grown stone a diamond at all — provided the origin is disclosed.

The GIA. The world's best-known gem laboratory states that a laboratory-grown diamond "possesses essentially the same chemical, physical and optical properties as its natural counterpart," and elsewhere that the two are "essentially chemically and optically the same." GIA grades them, issues reports on them, and has done so for years.

Gemology itself. Hardness, refractive index, dispersion, thermal conductivity and specific gravity are all measurable, and on all of them the two stones return the same readings. There is no test a gemologist can run that says "this is not a diamond."

So what is different?

Growth history, and only growth history. A natural diamond formed slowly in the earth and usually picked up traces of nitrogen along the way. A lab-grown diamond formed quickly in a controlled chamber and carries the fingerprints of that process instead: a different growth morphology, different internal strain, different fluorescence patterns.

Those fingerprints are real, and a properly equipped laboratory can read them. They are also invisible to you, to your jeweler's loupe, and to the person admiring the ring. They tell a scientist how the stone formed. They do not tell anyone how it looks.

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What a lab-grown diamond is not

This is where most of the confusion lives, and it's worth being precise, because "lab-grown" and "fake" get used interchangeably by people who mean different things.

A diamond simulant is a different material that resembles a diamond. It is not carbon, it is not as hard, and it handles light differently. The two common ones:

Moissanite is silicon carbide. It is a beautiful stone with noticeably more fire than a diamond, to the point that some people prefer it and others find it obvious. It registers 9.25 on the Mohs scale against a diamond's 10, and it is not a diamond by any definition.

Cubic zirconia is zirconium dioxide. It is softer again, around 8 to 8.5, it abrades and clouds with wear, and it costs a fraction of either.

A lab-grown diamond is not in this category. It is carbon, it is a 10, and it is a diamond. Calling it a simulant is simply wrong.

If you're weighing a lab-grown diamond against moissanite specifically, that's a real decision with real trade-offs on both sides, and we've written it up separately in moissanite vs lab-grown diamonds.

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How lab-grown diamonds are made

There are two production methods. Both start with a thin slice of existing diamond — a seed — and grow new carbon onto it.

HPHT: high pressure, high temperature

This method reproduces the conditions under which diamonds form in the earth. A diamond seed sits in a chamber with a carbon source and a metal flux. GIA describes the conditions: "The growth chamber is heated to 1300-1600 °C with pressures above 870,000 pounds per square inch." The carbon dissolves and crystallizes onto the seed, which GIA says takes "several days to weeks to grow one or several crystals."

GIA notes that HPHT growth "produces a distinctively shaped laboratory-grown diamond crystal." The geometry of the finished crystal is characteristic of the method.

HPHT is the older of the two techniques. The same acronym also describes a treatment used to improve the color of finished diamonds, natural and lab-grown alike. That is a different process from growing a stone, and the two get confused constantly.

CVD: chemical vapor deposition

A diamond seed plate sits in a vacuum chamber filled with, in GIA's words, "a hydrogen and carbon-containing gas, such as methane." The chamber is heated to roughly 900–1,200 °C and a microwave beam turns the gas into a plasma, from which carbon precipitates onto the seed, layer by layer.

CVD runs at far lower pressure than HPHT and produces, in GIA's description, "a square-shaped, tabular diamond crystal." GIA puts the timeline at "three or four weeks," with the crystal taken out every few days for surface polishing before growth resumes.

Either way

Once the rough crystal comes out of the chamber it is cut and polished exactly like a mined stone, by the same cutters, on the same wheels, to the same proportions. The cutting stage is identical. Everything that happens after growth is ordinary diamond work.

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Can anyone tell the difference?

Not by looking. Not with a loupe. Not a jeweler, at a counter, without equipment.

GIA is unusually direct about this: "traditional gemological observations and old-style 'diamond detectors' are not able to tell them apart." Identification requires "trained gemologists and sophisticated equipment designed for that purpose."

What that equipment does is look for the growth fingerprints described earlier. GIA's own screening instrument, the iD100, uses spectroscopic analysis. A full laboratory goes further, examining fluorescence patterns tied to growth morphology, strain, and trace-element signatures.

So the practical answer, for anyone wearing a ring:

The distinction is scientifically solid and practically invisible at the same time, and most of the argument about lab-grown diamonds comes from people emphasizing one half of that and ignoring the other.

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Do lab-grown diamonds pass a diamond tester?

Yes, and they should, because the test is doing its job correctly.

A standard handheld diamond tester measures thermal conductivity. Diamond conducts heat better than almost any other material, which is what separates it from simulants. A lab-grown diamond is diamond, so it conducts heat like diamond, so the tester reads "diamond."

This is not the tester being fooled. The tester is answering the question "is this carbon in diamond structure?" and the answer is yes.

The myth persists because "passes the test" sounds like something got away with it. Nothing did. The stone is a diamond, and the instrument said so.

If you need to know which one you have, the answer is a laboratory report, not a handheld device. GIA is explicit that "old-style 'diamond detectors' are not able to tell them apart," and that separating the two takes trained gemologists and spectroscopic equipment.

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How lab-grown diamonds are graded and certified

This section changed substantially in late 2025, and a great deal of what you'll read elsewhere is now out of date.

What changed at GIA

Until recently GIA graded lab-grown diamonds on the same D-to-Z color scale and the same clarity scale it uses for natural stones.

That stopped on 1 October 2025. GIA now issues a quality assessment instead, placing a stone in one of two categories — Premium or Standard — rather than giving it a color grade and a clarity grade. GIA's president and CEO, Pritesh Patel, put the reasoning plainly: "GIA will no longer use the nomenclature created for natural diamonds to describe what is a manufactured product."

The thresholds for round brilliants:

A stone that meets a mix of the two lands in Standard. A stone that doesn't meet the minimum for Standard receives no GIA assessment at all. Stones are inscribed on the girdle with "laboratory-grown" and the assessment number, and the minimum submission size is 0.15 ct.

Watch what this does to the shorthand. A D color, VS1 clarity stone, which is a fine stone by any measure, comes out as Standard, because VS1 sits below the VVS clarity threshold Premium requires. "Standard" in this system does not mean ordinary; it means the stone cleared one bar out of two.

What IGI still does

The International Gemological Institute continues to issue conventional lab-grown diamond reports carrying a color grade and a clarity grade in the familiar format. An IGI laboratory-grown diamond report states that the stone was "analyzed, graded and Laserscribed®" and shows, for example, "Color Grade E" and "Clarity Grade VS 1."

This is why most lab-grown stones in the retail market carry IGI reports: the report format matches how people shop. If you want to compare one stone against another on color and clarity, you need a document that reports color and clarity.

What this means when you're shopping

• A GIA report dated before October 2025 carries conventional grades. One issued after does not.
• An IGI report carries conventional grades.
• Comparing a GIA "Standard" stone against an IGI "F / VS1" stone is comparing two different measurement systems. You cannot line them up directly.
• Any stone you're seriously considering should come with a report from a recognized laboratory. Not a "certificate of authenticity" from the seller — an independent laboratory report with a number you can look up on that laboratory's own site.

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What lab-grown diamonds cost, and why

A lab-grown diamond costs dramatically less than a natural diamond of comparable size and quality, and the gap has widened every year.

The reason is supply. Natural diamond supply is constrained by geology. Lab-grown supply is constrained by factory capacity, and factory capacity has grown enormously while the technology has got cheaper and faster.

What that has done to wholesale prices is striking. Edahn Golan, who has tracked lab-grown wholesale prices since 2018, reports his index down 96% over that period. Prices fell 26% across 2025 alone, then another 14% year over year in the first quarter of 2026 and 13% in the second. At the bottom end, a three-carat VVS, D color round was moving wholesale at $126 per carat in early 2026, 30% cheaper than a year before.

Retail has not fallen nearly as fast. Analyst Paul Zimnisky puts the typical retail markup at more than 80% above wholesale, a figure that barely moved between 2025 and 2026. The spread between what stones cost and what they sell for is where the industry's margin now sits.

Two practical consequences for a buyer:

Your budget goes much further on size and quality. This is the real argument for lab-grown, and it's a strong one. The Knot's 2026 Real Weddings Study, surveying 10,474 US couples married in 2025, found an average engagement ring spend of $4,600 and an average center stone of 1.9 carats, a combination that was out of reach at that budget a decade ago. Our diamond price guide sets the two stone types side by side at each carat weight from half a carat up to five.

Prices are still moving. A stone bought today is likely to be available cheaper next year. That is excellent news if you're buying now and irrelevant if you never sell. It is very bad news if you expected to hold value.

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Are lab-grown diamonds better for the environment?

This is the claim you'll see most often and the one with the least evidence behind it in either direction.

The regulator reached that conclusion years ago. The FTC's Green Guides state that "marketers should not make unqualified general environmental benefit claims," and in 2019 the Commission wrote to lab-grown diamond sellers specifically, warning that "eco-friendly" and "sustainable" were claims they were "highly unlikely" to be able to substantiate.

Why the claim is hard to support. Growing a diamond takes a great deal of energy, and the footprint depends almost entirely on the electricity powering the reactor. Paul Zimnisky: "Man-made diamonds require an enormous amount of energy." GIA research scientist Dr. Ulrika D'Haenens-Johansson has noted that many if not most producers run on fossil-fuel electricity, and more than 60% of lab-grown production happens in China and India. A minority of growers do run on renewables, which is a real difference — but it is a difference between producers, not between categories, and nothing about a finished stone tells you which you have.

Why the opposite claim is also hard to support. Mining moves an enormous amount of earth for very little stone — around 4,350 kg of waste rock per polished carat, on one independent estimate — and what it leaves is durable. A review by Dr Gbemi Oluleye of Imperial College London concluded that mineral exploitation "causes irreversible damage to the natural environment," calling land disturbance "the most lasting and visible environmental impact of diamond mining." Open pits, tailings dams and altered water tables outlast the mine by generations, and ecosystems do not simply resume afterwards: the same review records twenty lakes "eliminated altogether, with no fish habitat compensation measures in place," and a caribou population in one mining region falling from 400,000 in the 1980s to 128,000 by 2006. Rehabilitation can soften this. It does not undo it.

Nobody can settle it from the outside, either. There is no independent, audited lifecycle comparison of the two, and most published figures come from parties with a stake — lab-grown sellers on one side, the Natural Diamond Council on the other. Even the Imperial College review quotes experts who distrust the underlying numbers, one of them flatly: "I use the data but do not trust it." The spread inside each category compounds the problem: energy per carat in that review varied more than tenfold between individual mines, and a grower running on renewables sits just as far from one running on coal.

One organization tried to resolve it stone by stone. SCS-007, the only third-party sustainability certification for diamonds, was retired on 1 September 2026. The mining sector never adopted it, and no clear regulatory path exists for product-level chain-of-custody claims. There is currently no active certification of this kind for diamonds of either origin.

What to do with that. The question worth asking is not "lab-grown or mined?" but "what does the report say about this stone?" Some natural diamonds carry a verified country of origin, established by matching the rough crystal to the polished stone. Lab-grown stones have no equivalent at present.

If provenance matters to you, tell us at the outset. We will source a stone whose report records its origin.

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Do lab-grown diamonds hold their value?

No. This is the asterisk, and you should have it straight before you buy rather than after.

A lab-grown diamond has essentially no resale market. Asked directly, one dealer quoted in JCK put it as bluntly as it can be put: "There is no resale value for lab-grown diamonds." He added that any resale value "only exists for the mounting," meaning the gold or platinum, not the stone.

The structural reason is simple. Resale requires scarcity, and there is none. Anyone who wants a two-carat lab-grown diamond can buy a brand new one, cut to order, for less than you paid, without dealing with a stranger. There is no reason for a buyer to prefer your used stone, and so there is no market price for it.

The trade data reflects this. The ratio of lab-grown inventory to sales at US jewelry retailers has climbed from the high single digits in 2020 to nearly 50%, meaning the industry is holding roughly half a year's worth of stock it hasn't sold.

Natural diamonds are not an investment either, and the comparison gets made dishonestly in that direction often enough to be worth correcting. Retail markups mean a natural stone also sells back for well below what you paid. The difference is one of degree. A natural diamond has a secondary market with buyers and prices, even when those prices disappoint. A lab-grown diamond largely does not.

So the honest framing is this. If you are buying a ring to wear for fifty years, resale value is a number you will never test, and the lab-grown stone gives you more ring for the money. If any part of your thinking involves the stone being worth something later, lab-grown is the wrong choice, and you should know that before you spend rather than after.

In that case, choose a natural center stone. Browse Barkev's diamond engagement rings, where you choose the design first and the stone second. The ring you wanted and the stone that suits you are not a trade-off.

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Who a lab-grown diamond suits, and who it doesn't

A lab-grown diamond is a good fit if:

• Size or quality matters more to you than origin. This is the main case, and it's a strong one. At any given budget you will get a visibly larger or noticeably cleaner stone.
• You want a specific look you couldn't otherwise reach: a five-carat emerald cut, a D color, a flawless stone.
• You're buying something to wear, not something to hold.
• You'd rather put the difference into the setting, the metal, or the honeymoon.

A natural diamond is the better choice if:

• The fact that it formed in the earth matters to you. That's a legitimate preference and it doesn't need justifying.
• You want the stone to retain some secondary-market value, however modest.
• It's a piece intended to be handed down, where provenance is part of the point.
• You're matching or restoring an heirloom.

There is no technically correct answer, because the stones are the same material. What you are really deciding is what you want the object to mean and what you want it to cost, and nobody can weigh that for you.

Explore Barkev's lab-grown diamond engagement rings, or browse diamond engagement rings and choose your own stone.

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Buying a lab-grown ring

Whichever way you go, a few things are worth insisting on.

Get an independent laboratory report on the center stone. From IGI, GIA, or another recognized laboratory, with a number you can verify on that laboratory's own website. Not a seller's own certificate.

Check which report you're reading. Post-October-2025 GIA reports use Premium and Standard. IGI reports use conventional color and clarity grades. Know which you have before comparing two stones.

Make sure the origin is disclosed in writing. The FTC expects "laboratory-grown," "laboratory-created," or "[manufacturer]-created," clearly and near the description. Vagueness here is a warning sign.

Ask what the accent stones are. A ring described as lab-grown should be consistent throughout. Mixed construction isn't wrong, but you should know about it before you buy, not after.

Ask about resizing before you buy, not after. Some designs cannot be resized without compromising them, among them eternity bands, tension settings and some channel-set rings. That has nothing to do with whether the stone is lab-grown, but it has everything to do with whether the ring will fit in five years. Our ring size chart and measuring guide walks through getting it right the first time.

How Barkev's handles it

Every Barkev's design is made with either a lab-grown or a natural center stone. The same ring, the same workshop, the same standard. The choice of stone is yours. Accent stones follow the center: lab-grown with lab-grown, natural with natural.

Our preset lab-grown rings are set with D-E-F color, VS1 clarity centers, typically one to five carats. Larger and smaller stones are available on most designs. Every center stone is accompanied by an independent laboratory report.

Each ring is made to order in our Los Angeles workshop, where we have designed and manufactured since 1981. Resizing is complimentary within thirty days of delivery on any design that can be resized.

Explore lab-grown diamond engagement rings

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Frequently asked questions

Are lab-grown diamonds real diamonds? Yes. A lab-grown diamond is pure carbon crystallized in the isometric system, which is the FTC's full definition of a diamond. The FTC removed "natural" from that definition in 2018. GIA states that lab-grown diamonds have "essentially the same chemical, physical and optical properties" as natural ones.

Are lab-grown diamonds fake? No. A fake diamond is a different material made to look like a diamond — cubic zirconia or moissanite, for example. A lab-grown diamond is diamond. The word that applies is "laboratory-grown," not "fake."

Can a jeweler tell if a diamond is lab-grown? Not by eye or with a loupe. GIA states that "traditional gemological observations and old-style 'diamond detectors' are not able to tell them apart," and that identification requires trained gemologists and specialized equipment. A gem laboratory can tell; a jeweler at a counter cannot.

Do lab-grown diamonds pass a diamond tester? Yes. Standard testers measure thermal conductivity, and a lab-grown diamond conducts heat exactly as a natural diamond does. The tester is reading the stone correctly.

How are lab-grown diamonds made? Two methods. HPHT recreates the earth's conditions — GIA puts the growth chamber at 1,300–1,600 °C under pressures above 870,000 psi — and crystallizes carbon onto a diamond seed. CVD heats a hydrogen and carbon-containing gas such as methane to around 900–1,200 °C in a vacuum chamber and precipitates carbon onto a seed plate layer by layer. The rough crystal is then cut and polished like any other diamond.

How long does it take to grow a diamond? GIA puts HPHT growth at "several days to weeks" and CVD at "three or four weeks," with the CVD crystal removed every few days for surface polishing before growth continues. Cutting and polishing follow.

Are lab-grown diamonds cheaper? Substantially, and increasingly so. Wholesale lab-grown prices are down roughly 96% since 2018 and fell 26% during 2025 alone. The practical effect is that a given budget buys a much larger or cleaner stone.

Do lab-grown diamonds hold their value? No. A dealer quoted in JCK stated flatly that "there is no resale value for lab-grown diamonds," with any residual value sitting in the mounting rather than the stone. Because new stones can be grown to order at falling prices, there's no scarcity to support a secondary market.

Are lab-grown diamonds graded by GIA? GIA assesses them, but since 1 October 2025 it no longer issues conventional color and clarity grades for lab-grown stones. It assigns Premium or Standard instead. IGI continues to issue conventional color and clarity grades, which is why most lab-grown stones in retail carry IGI reports.

What does "Standard" mean on a GIA lab-grown report? It means the stone met GIA's Standard criteria rather than clearing every Premium threshold. Premium requires D color, VVS or better clarity, and Excellent polish, symmetry and cut. A D color VS1 stone is classified Standard because of the clarity threshold alone. It is not a statement that the stone is mediocre.

Are lab-grown diamonds more ethical or better for the environment? There's no settled answer. Growing diamonds is energy-intensive and most production sits in China and India on coal-heavy grids, though some growers run on renewables. Mining causes what an Imperial College London review called "irreversible damage to the natural environment," yet energy per carat varies more than tenfold between individual mines. No independent audited lifecycle comparison exists, most published figures come from interested parties, and SCS-007 — the one third-party sustainability certification for diamonds — was retired on 1 September 2026 after the mining sector declined to adopt it. The FTC's Green Guides tell marketers not to make unqualified general environmental claims at all. Which stone is better depends on who produced yours, not on which category it falls into.

Will a lab-grown diamond get cloudy or scratch? No. It is a 10 on the Mohs scale, the same as any other diamond. It will not cloud, abrade, or lose brilliance with wear. That behavior belongs to cubic zirconia, which is a different material entirely.

What's the difference between lab-grown and moissanite? Moissanite is silicon carbide, not carbon. It's 9.25 on the Mohs scale, and it disperses light more strongly, which gives it noticeably more fire. It's a lovely stone but it is not a diamond. A lab-grown diamond is a diamond.

Is a lab-grown diamond a good choice for an engagement ring? It's now the most common choice. The Knot's 2026 study of 10,474 US couples found 61% of engagement rings featured a lab-grown center stone, up 239% since 2020. It's a good choice if you want maximum size and quality for your budget, and the wrong choice if you want the stone to hold value.

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Sources

• Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries Guides, 16 CFR Part 23 — eCFR
• A Quick Review of the FTC's Rules on Lab-Grown Diamonds — National Jeweler
• What the FTC's 8 Warning Letters Said — JCK
• Difference Between Natural and Laboratory-Grown Diamonds — GIA
• HPHT and CVD Diamond Growth Processes — GIA
• GIA Details Updates to Lab-Grown Diamond Grading — JCK
• Lab-Grown Diamond Wholesale Prices Are in Freefall — JCK
• The Knot Worldwide Unveils 2026 Real Weddings Study
• GIA Introduces New Diamond Country of Origin Reports — GIA
• Are lab-grown diamonds as sustainable as advertised? — ABC News
• Green Guides, 16 CFR § 260.4, General environmental benefit claims — eCFR
• SCS Global Ending "Sustainably Rated" Certificates for Diamonds, Gems — JCK, 18 September 2026
• Environmental Impacts of Mined Diamonds, Dr Gbemi Oluleye, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London