Natural vs Lab-Grown Gemstones: Which Should You Choose?

The phrase invites a misunderstanding, so it is worth dismantling at the outset. When people ask about natural vs lab-grown gemstones, they usually mean to ask which one is real. That is the wrong axis. Both are real gemstones; they differ in where they came from, not in what they are.

A natural gemstone crystallized in the earth, without human intervention in its formation, and was then recovered by mining. A laboratory-grown gemstone — the terms “laboratory-created,” “lab-grown,” and “lab-created gemstones” all describe the same thing — is the identical mineral, grown deliberately in a factory under controlled conditions. According to the GIA, a laboratory-grown stone “shares virtually all chemical, optical, and physical characteristics of its natural mineral counterpart.” A laboratory-grown ruby is corundum, exactly as a mined ruby is corundum. A laboratory-grown diamond is crystallized carbon, exactly as a mined diamond is.

Two further categories are frequently confused with laboratory-grown stones and should be separated from them:

• Imitation or simulant. A material that looks like a gem but is chemically different — cubic zirconia standing in for diamond, glass standing in for emerald. This is the only category that is fair to call “not real,” and it is distinct from a laboratory-grown stone.
• Treated natural. A mined stone whose appearance has been improved by heat, oiling, irradiation, or dye. “Natural” does not mean “untreated” — most rubies and sapphires on the market are heat-treated, and the treatment must be disclosed regardless of the stone’s natural origin.

So the honest framing sets a genuine mined stone against a genuine manufactured one, with imitations and treatments as separate questions entirely.

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Growing a gem is not new. The GIA records that “in the late 1800s, ruby became the first gem to be created in a laboratory by Auguste Verneuil,” who “in 1902 announced the development of his flame-fusion process.” Laboratory gemstones are, in other words, older than the Art Deco period itself — a point we return to below, because it has direct bearing on antique-inspired jewelry.

The method depends on the stone.

The two diamond methods, HPHT and CVD, are the ones that have changed the market most, because they have become fast and inexpensive enough to produce gem-quality diamond at industrial scale. That scale is the whole story behind the price movements discussed further down. The colored-stone methods are older and, in the case of flux and hydrothermal emerald, slow and costly enough that laboratory-grown colored stones have never displaced natural ones the way laboratory-grown diamond has begun to.

They are real, and the position is not a matter of opinion — it is written into U.S. trade regulation. In 2018 the FTC revised its Jewelry Guides (16 CFR Part 23) and removed the word “natural” from its definition of a diamond. The Commission’s reasoning was direct: laboratory-grown stones “have essentially the same optical, physical, and chemical properties as mined diamonds. Thus, they are diamonds.”

That single change reframed the whole conversation. A laboratory-grown diamond is a diamond; a laboratory-grown sapphire is a sapphire. What the guides then require is honesty about origin, and they are precise about it:

• Disclosure is mandatory. A man-made stone must be described “with equal conspicuousness” as “laboratory-grown,” “laboratory-created,” “[manufacturer name]-created,” or a phrase of like meaning, so that a buyer is never left to assume it was mined.
• Certain words are off-limits for a man-made stone. Under the guides it is deceptive to use “real,” “genuine,” “natural,” “precious,” or “semi-precious” to describe a gemstone that was produced artificially.
• “Cultured” is allowed only with a qualifier. A laboratory-grown stone may be called “cultured” only when the term is immediately accompanied by a disclosure such as “laboratory-grown,” never on its own.
• “Synthetic” was quietly retired. The FTC removed “synthetic” from its list of recommended disclosure terms, on the reasoning that consumers may wrongly read it to mean “fake.” Gemologically the word is accurate; commercially the FTC judged it misleading.

This is where natural vs lab-grown gemstones stops being a question of chemistry and becomes a question of economics, and it is the difference a buyer feels most over time. A gemstone’s price is set by supply and demand, not by its atomic structure — and the supply of the two could not be more different.

Natural stones exist in finite quantity. A laboratory can make more laboratory-grown stones whenever it builds more capacity, and it has. As diamond-growing capacity expanded, wholesale prices fell steeply. The diamond-industry analyst Edahn Golan recorded laboratory-grown diamond wholesale prices down roughly 37 percent year on year by the third quarter of 2025, with a round, one-carat, laboratory-grown diamond trading wholesale around 73 U.S. dollars per carat — a fraction of what the equivalent commanded only a few years earlier.

We state two things about this, and we are careful to state no more:

• A laboratory-grown stone is an excellent way to obtain a large, clean, bright gem for a given budget today. On a purely visual basis, a buyer gets more stone for the money.
• A laboratory-grown stone should be bought for the pleasure of wearing it, not as a store of value, because the price of the material itself is falling as it becomes easier to make.

What we will not do is complete the sentence in the other direction. We do not tell clients that a natural stone is an investment, or that it will appreciate, because no gemstone should be sold on a promise of financial return. A natural stone’s value rests on finite geological supply and on demand that has held for centuries; that is a genuine distinction from a manufactured material, and it is as far as an honest jeweler should take the point.

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You generally cannot, by eye, and neither can most jewelers without instruments — which is precisely why disclosure and documentation matter so much. Because a laboratory-grown stone is the same material as its natural counterpart, the differences are not in color or brilliance but in the microscopic record of how the crystal grew.

A gem laboratory separates them by reading that record: the pattern of internal growth, the type and arrangement of inclusions, and the way a stone responds to ultraviolet light and to specialized spectroscopy. For diamond, the GIA notes that “in some cases, a trained gemologist can recognize” laboratory-grown material with standard equipment, while “in other cases, identification requires testing the diamond using advanced scientific instruments.” The GIA and other laboratories now issue reports that state a stone’s origin explicitly, and a laboratory-grown diamond receives a distinct Laboratory-Grown Diamond Report rather than a natural-diamond grading report.

The practical guidance that follows is simple:

• Buy the paperwork, not the promise. For any significant stone, a report from a recognized laboratory stating natural or laboratory-grown origin is the only reliable proof. A seller’s word, however sincere, is not identification.
• Be wary of a natural price on an undisclosed stone. Since laboratory-grown material now costs a fraction of natural, an unusually large, clean stone at an unusually low price warrants a report before purchase.
• Keep the documentation with the piece. Origin cannot be re-established casually later; the report travels with the stone for resale, insurance, and inheritance.

Our house policy is to set natural gemstones, and we hold it deliberately rather than by default. The reasons are specific to the kind of jewelry we make.

Heritage and the antique-inspired tradition. Our work is Art Deco- and Edwardian-inspired, made new in the tradition of period jewelry. A natural stone belongs to that tradition in a way a modern manufactured one does not — and the irony, given the history above, is instructive. Verneuil’s flame-fusion synthetics were available during the real Art Deco period, and genuine 1920s pieces sometimes contain them. We prefer that our antique-inspired pieces carry natural stones, so that the material honors the period rather than merely the look of it.

Rarity as part of the object. A natural stone is a finite object with a geological history; no two are quite alike, and that individuality is part of what a client is choosing. A manufactured stone, by design, can be reproduced.

A value character that suits an heirloom. A piece intended to be worn for decades and passed on is better served by a material whose worth rests on finite supply than by one whose price is falling as it becomes easier to make. We make this point about the object’s character, not as any promise of appreciation.

Every stone we set is a natural gemstone in solid gold, and each piece is newly made and antique-inspired — never an antique, an estate piece, or a period original.

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There is no universally correct answer, because the two materials are suited to different priorities. The honest way to choose between the two is to decide which of the following matters most to you, and let that settle it.

Whichever way the decision falls, two rules hold for both columns. Insist on disclosure — the origin should be stated in writing, never assumed. And match the stone to the setting and the wear, because a gem’s durability depends on its species and hardness, not on whether it was mined or grown. A laboratory-grown emerald is exactly as brittle as a natural one.

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The debate over natural vs lab-grown gemstones is best held apart from the language of fake and real, because that language answers a question no one should be asking. A laboratory-grown stone is a genuine gem with the same chemistry as its mined counterpart, and the FTC rewrote its Jewelry Guides in 2018 to say so. What separates the two is origin and everything that follows from it: a natural stone is a finite object formed in the earth, and a laboratory-grown stone is a manufactured one that can be produced again whenever there is capacity to make it.

That single fact — finite against reproducible — is what the whole lab-grown vs natural question turns on, and it explains the rest. It explains why laboratory-grown prices have fallen as production has scaled, why natural stones command a premium, and why disclosure is written into law. It does not make either one a mistake. A laboratory-grown gem is an honest, cost-effective way to wear a large and beautiful stone today; a natural gem is the right material for a piece meant to last and to be handed on.

Our own choice is settled and specific. For the antique-inspired, solid-gold jewelry we make, we set natural stones — for their rarity, for their place in the tradition our work belongs to, and for the character they give an heirloom. We hold that position while stating plainly that laboratory-grown stones are real gems, honestly sold, and a reasonable choice for a buyer whose priorities are different from ours.