Treatments to enhance natural diamond

Natural diamonds can also be irradiated treated to give them fancy colour or turned whiter by HPHT treatment. These treatments are also detected by laboratories and disclosed on their certificates as treated or enhanced with a description of their treatment.

Colour treated diamonds allow people who don’t want a synthetic diamond but a natural diamond but can’t afford to pay for a natural fancy colour; pink, blue or other. Allowing them to choose a specific treated colour of their liking without paying through the nose and knowing that the diamond is a natural stone which colour has only been changed. Companies who sell these assure clients that the colour will remain indefinitely.

Branding 

The last 10 years has seen an increase in branding diamonds such as De Beers with their ‘Forever Mark’ and others which some clients look for giving them credibility and being part of club. Some of these companies even inscribe their name and personal reference number to their diamonds. Branding is a great marketing strategy but it is important to be aware that a premium is paid for these diamonds like any luxury brand.

Synthetic Diamonds

Man-made diamonds or sometimes called lab grown or cultured diamonds are on the increase. De Beers who have had the majority control on natural rough diamonds since 1888 recently have come into the high end synthetic industry and are now supplying these to the public at a fraction of the cost of natural diamonds to control the synthetic market.

With specific testing equipment, these can be detected and are labelled Synthetic on their certificates. These are grown in a number of ways such as HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) and CVD (Chemical Vapour Deposition) and can grow up to a few carats in sizes.

The benefits are that they look exactly the same as natural diamonds even through a loup and cost a fraction of the price of natural diamonds. It makes fancy colours diamonds more affordable. For example, a natural pink will cost anywhere from $20,000-250,000 per carat depending on its colour strength, quality and size unlike a synthetic pink which would be between $5,000-10,000 per carat. A huge price difference!