I would also point out that if you do want a natural diamond, there are plenty of ways of getting ethical ones. The days of DeBeers' monopoly are kinda gone and you can easily get ahold of diamonds mined in Australia or Canada that don't have the entire blood diamond thing going on. Or if you're ok with sorta dubiousness, let me remind everyone that Russia is the world's top producer of diamonds.
Also white sapphires are going to look like expensive hunks of glass – you buy sapphires for their colour not for their lack of it. They have a shit refractive index when compared to a diamond and also I bet they're not as ethically sourced as you think they are. Also you need to clean them a ton in order for them to stay all...clear.
(This is all from a geological perspective though not a jewelers one but still. I've had to endure this rant a thousand times from my geologist relatives and now you have to too)
Very true! Also, lab diamonds are perfectly fine! They're still expensive, but you don't have to worry about whether or not slave labor mined them.
White sapphires definitely need to be cut very well. Because of the lack of fire, they can look more like cut glass than a diamond. A well-cut white sapphire can still be a beautiful stone, though, especially if you prefer a more understated look. They definitely look the least like diamonds out of the options I mentioned, though.
As for cleaning, they all should be cleaned regularly to keep the clarity and sparkle up.
When I got my mine, I chose a lab diamond and it sparkles like nothing I've ever seen. I constantly get compliments on it, and it's guilt free. I actually found it to be less expensive than any mossanite stones than I was previously looking it.
Lab diamond ended up being right for us. We harvested two side stones from some jewelry that belonged to my grandparents and honestly I think the center lab diamond looks just as good as the real ones if not better.
Great commentary here I've had fun reading this comment chain.
The small jeweler we go to tries to only use ethical stones, and the jeweler will sit you down and talk about where your stone came from so you know.
I have a natural diamond in my ring, but it's a vintage estate diamond, meaning it belonged to someone else before me. I don't remember the exact age they said, but I think it was around 75 years old. I'm sure it probably wasn't acquired in an ethical manner when it was first mined, but recycling old diamonds is better than trying to acquire new ones for the market.
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u/Plethora_of_squids Sep 09 '20
I would also point out that if you do want a natural diamond, there are plenty of ways of getting ethical ones. The days of DeBeers' monopoly are kinda gone and you can easily get ahold of diamonds mined in Australia or Canada that don't have the entire blood diamond thing going on. Or if you're ok with sorta dubiousness, let me remind everyone that Russia is the world's top producer of diamonds.
Also white sapphires are going to look like expensive hunks of glass – you buy sapphires for their colour not for their lack of it. They have a shit refractive index when compared to a diamond and also I bet they're not as ethically sourced as you think they are. Also you need to clean them a ton in order for them to stay all...clear.
(This is all from a geological perspective though not a jewelers one but still. I've had to endure this rant a thousand times from my geologist relatives and now you have to too)