This is a great point, it is really stupid that people say that lab grown gemstones are “fake”. They are really the exact same thing, made of the exact same material as naturally formed gemstones. We really should start to embrace lab grown gemstones. They are just as beautiful (if not more so), more affordable, and most importantly more ethical to produce.
(via: Vellum and Vinyl)
Where can I find these $20 rubies? Looking to start a hoard…
google. I saw an etsy store, and a few others
Found the dragon 😁😁
Gemsngems.com has a lot of lab gems.
This is not actually true; and I’ll explain why.
When gemstones grow in nature, they grow under constantly altering conditions. These alterations produce layers within the crystal’s formation that have anywhere from slightly to wildly different colours, and varying thicknesses of those colours – from microns to millimetres. The crystal lattice is also forced to grow in multiple different ways as the natural growth process goes on. The result of this complex interplay of colour and structure is a stone with vibrancy and unpredictable characteristics – some of which might be hideous, and some of which may be absolutely gorgeous.
When a stone is grown in a lab, it’s grown under controlled conditions, with specific ingredients in exact balance. The conditions are usually nowhere near those of natural formation, so the materials also behave oddly. What you get is in most cases closer to a chemical glass of perfectly uniform colour, lacking in a proper crystalline structure and with a uniformity in colour that removes the possibility of the striking vividness that natural mixed-hue layering and variant crystallisation can produce. When you see most such stones coming out of the lab in their raw state, they’re just boules of mineral glass awaiting a cutter-decided shape – utterly uniform, and utterly uninteresting.
The one exception to this is the lab-grown diamond – and this is because the only way we’ve been able to produce lab-grown diamonds is by mirroring as closely as possible the natural growth conditions of the stone. In the classical white diamond, colour variance is also an undesired trait – you want them as clean of colour as possible, so a uniform colourless growth actually works. So of all the lab-grown stones, the only time you’re going to get a truly better stone from a synthetic example is with a diamond.
Now, I personally have nothing against the idea of lab-growing stones – if it can produce the match or superior of the natural product. Unfortunately, with the exception of the diamond, we currently can’t. I’d happily encourage research that takes us down the route of doing so, definitely – a world with fewer mine accidents or gem cartels would be a better world. And techniques have certainly advanced in that field – we do a much better job of it now than we did even 50 years ago. But we’re not there yet for any stone other than a white diamond.
If you find the coloured mineral glass that is the average synthetic gemstone to be to your tastes, then good for you – buy what you like, and enjoy it. But don’t equate it to the real thing – because anyone who’s had anything significant to do with the real thing knows full well that they don’t equate. I’ve had significant dealings as a cutter with a wide range of natural and synthetic stones – and I’ll take the natural over the synthetic for beauty any day, in all cases except a diamond. For a white diamond, I’d definitely take the synthetic. For a coloured diamond, I’d take the natural or the irradiated.