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Lab grown and natural diamonds are the same material. Both are crystallised carbon, both score 10 on the Mohs scale, both refract light identically. The only real difference is age and origin. A natural diamond formed 150 to 200 kilometres below the earth’s surface over one to three billion years. A lab grown diamond was made in a chamber in about eight weeks.

Everything else that gets argued about follows from that one fact.

This comparison is for anyone choosing a centre stone for an engagement ring in Australia and trying to work out whether the price gap is a bargain or a warning. It covers how each type is made, how they are graded, what happens to their value, how the ethics actually compare, and how a jeweller tells them apart. It matters because the same budget buys very different rings depending on which way you go.

Stelios Jewellers is a family workshop at 145 Scarborough Beach Road in Mt Hawthorn, and our bench team carries more than 200 years of combined experience. We set both types every week. We sell lab grown diamonds and we sell natural stones, including rare Western Australian pink diamonds, so we have no commercial reason to talk one down.

Lab Grown Versus Natural Diamonds

The two stones arrive at the same place by very different routes, and understanding the route explains most of the price difference.

How Natural Diamonds Form

Natural diamonds form in the earth’s mantle, roughly 150 to 200 kilometres down, where carbon atoms sit under about 5 gigapascals of pressure at temperatures near 1,300 degrees. Under those conditions carbon locks into a cubic crystal structure rather than the sheet structure that produces graphite. The process takes between one and three billion years.

Getting to the surface is the rarer event. Diamonds only reach us through kimberlite eruptions, violent volcanic pipes that travel fast enough that the carbon does not have time to revert to graphite on the way up. Most of those eruptions happened long before humans existed, which is why economically viable deposits are so few. Geological rarity, not marketing, is what natural diamonds are priced on, and it is a large part of what an engagement ring costs.

How Lab Grown Diamonds Are Made

Lab grown diamonds are made two ways, and the method affects the stone.

High pressure high temperature, or HPHT, recreates mantle conditions inside a press. A diamond seed goes into a growth cell with a carbon source and a metal flux, then sits under enormous pressure at around 1,400 degrees while carbon crystallises onto the seed. HPHT diamonds sometimes carry faint metallic inclusions from the flux.

Chemical vapour deposition, or CVD, works differently. A thin diamond seed plate sits in a vacuum chamber filled with carbon rich gases, usually methane and hydrogen. Microwaves strike a plasma, the gas breaks apart, and carbon settles onto the seed layer by layer. It is closer to growing a crystal than crushing one. CVD stones often need post-growth treatment to improve colour, and that treatment is disclosed on the certificate.

Either way the output is diamond. Not cubic zirconia, not moissanite, both of which are different materials that a trained eye picks up quickly. A lab grown diamond is to a natural diamond what a glasshouse tomato is to a field tomato. Same thing, different conditions.

Comparing Quality And Value

Both types are graded by the same gemological laboratories against the same standards, so the comparison is genuinely like for like.

Judging A Natural Diamond On The 4Cs

Carat, cut, colour and clarity determine what a natural stone is worth. Cut is the one that does the heavy lifting, because it governs how light returns to the eye, and it is the only C a human controls. Colour and clarity are graded on scales that describe accidents of formation. Carat measures weight, not size, which is why two one carat stones can look noticeably different on a hand.

Our view after decades at the bench is that most people over-buy clarity and under-buy cut. Inclusions graded VS2 and above are invisible to the naked eye. A mediocre cut is visible in Perth daylight from across a table. You can read the full breakdown in our 4Cs of diamonds guide.

Judging A Lab Grown Diamond On The 4Cs

Lab grown diamonds are graded identically, and because growth happens under controlled conditions, higher clarity grades are more common and cheaper to reach. That is the real advantage. For the same money you can typically move up one to two clarity grades, or gain substantial carat weight, or both.

The trade-off is that lab grown stones are not rare, and pricing reflects it. Expect to pay roughly 30 to 70 per cent less than a natural stone of comparable grade. If your priority is the largest, cleanest stone your budget allows, lab grown wins that argument outright.

A pattern we notice at the bench. Couples who arrive set on natural usually leave with a stone a little smaller than they pictured, and couples open to lab grown almost always spend the saving on size rather than pocketing it. Neither choice is wrong. It helps to know which of those two people you are before you sit down.

What Happens To The Value Over Time

Here is the part that gets glossed over in most articles.

Neither type is an investment. A natural diamond resells for a fraction of retail, because you are selling into a wholesale market that paid less than you did. But lab grown is a steeper curve. Production capacity is effectively unlimited, prices have fallen sharply over the last five years and are expected to keep falling, so a lab grown stone bought today will very likely be worth less than you paid within a few years.

That is not an argument against buying one. It is an argument for being honest about the job the ring is doing. If it needs to look extraordinary on a hand for the next forty years, lab grown does that perfectly. If it needs to be worth something when a grandchild inherits it, the calculation changes. Certified fancy coloured stones sit in a different market again, which we cover on our investment stones pages.

Ethics, Mining And The Kimberley Process

Ethical sourcing pushes plenty of buyers toward lab grown, and there is real substance to that. Lab grown diamonds avoid open-pit mining, land disturbance and the water use that comes with it.

The picture is more mixed than the marketing suggests, though. Growing diamonds is energy intensive, and a chamber running on coal-fired power is not obviously better than a well-regulated mine. Meanwhile natural diamond mining supports significant employment in Botswana, Namibia and parts of Australia. The Kimberley Process was set up to keep conflict diamonds out of the trade and it has reduced the problem substantially, though its definition of a blood diamond is narrow and critics are right that it misses labour abuses.

We ask suppliers for provenance on both, and we will tell you what we know and what we do not. The same applies to the stones we set into wedding bands.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions we get asked across the counter most often.

Are Lab Grown Diamonds Real Diamonds?

Yes. They have the same chemical composition, crystal structure, hardness and optical properties as mined stones. A fake diamond is cubic zirconia or moissanite, which are different materials entirely.

Can You Tell The Difference Between Lab Grown And Natural?

Not by eye, and not with a standard diamond tester, which reads thermal conductivity and returns “diamond” for both. Gemological laboratories use specialist equipment to read growth patterns and trace elements. Certified stones also carry a laser inscription on the girdle, readable under magnification.

Are Lab Grown Diamonds Cheaper?

Typically 30 to 70 per cent less than a natural stone of the same size and grade, which is why they are the more accessible price point for larger centre stones.

Do Lab Grown Diamonds Hold Their Value?

Generally no. Resale is usually well below purchase price, and prices are still falling as production capacity grows.

Are Lab Grown Diamonds Good For Everyday Wear?

Yes. At 10 on the Mohs scale they resist scratching exactly as natural stones do. Durability depends far more on the setting than on the stone’s origin, and you can see how we build ours in our custom gallery.

Which One Should You Choose?

There is no universally correct answer, which is why we stock both.

Choose lab grown if you want the largest, cleanest stone your budget allows and you are comfortable that resale value is not part of the equation. Choose natural if geological rarity matters to you, if the ring is intended to be handed down, or if you are drawn to coloured stones where the natural market behaves differently. Both will look extraordinary. Both will last a lifetime in a properly engineered setting.

What we would not do is let anyone talk you into either one on ethics alone, because the honest position on both is more complicated than the sales pitch.

Come and see us at 145 Scarborough Beach Road in Mt Hawthorn, where the workshop is on site and you can compare both types under the same light before you commit. We can also spread the cost. We spent years turning down finance partners before settling on Achievement Finance, so you can commission the ring you actually want rather than the one that fits this month. Start a design with our bespoke ring builder, browse our engagement rings, or read why engagement rings are diamonds for the history behind the choice.

Book a consultation with Stelios Jewellers and we will show you both stones side by side.