Walk into most jewellery stores and ask about lab-grown diamonds, and you will hear whichever answer pays that store best. We sell both natural and lab-grown stones, at honest prices, so we have no side to argue. What follows is the guide we would want handed to us.
Both are diamonds
A lab-grown diamond is a real diamond: carbon crystallised in the same lattice, with the same hardness, the same fire, the same optics. It is not a simulant like cubic zirconia or moissanite. Under a loupe, a trained eye cannot separate a fine lab stone from a fine natural one. Laboratories tell them apart with instruments, reading growth patterns and trace elements, and every certified stone states its origin on the report.
One formed over a billion years in the mantle of the earth and was found, against long odds, by someone digging for it. The other was grown in weeks in a machine built to grow it. Chemistry cannot tell them apart. Meaning can. Which of those matters more is the real question, and it is yours, not ours.
What has happened to the price
The honest version, with numbers. Wholesale lab-grown prices have fallen roughly 96 per cent since tracking began in 2018, and they were still drifting down through early 2026, fastest in the largest sizes. Growers keep getting better, so supply keeps getting cheaper. A two carat lab stone that commanded a serious price a few years ago is now an ordinary purchase.
Buyers noticed. In the most recent US wedding study, 61 per cent of engagement ring centre stones were lab-grown. Lab buyers spent about 4,300 US dollars on average and wore two carats; natural buyers spent about 7,000 and wore 1.6. The pattern is consistent: people buy lab for size at a budget, and natural for rarity at a budget.
Natural prices have their own truth. The market softened for years, and the recovery so far is concentrated in smaller stones while the one to two carat range stays competitive. Global rough production has fallen sharply as mines close and none are being built to replace them. Scarcity is not a slogan for natural stones. It is geology plus arithmetic.
The resale question, answered plainly
A lab-grown diamond should be bought with no expectation of resale value. Second-hand recovery runs from nearly nothing to a modest fraction of a retail price that is itself still falling. We price our lab stones to today's market and we tell every buyer this sentence before they pay.
A natural diamond holds meaning better than it holds a market. We do not sell natural stones as investments, and you should distrust anyone who does. What a natural stone offers is different: real rarity, an origin no machine can copy, and a permanence that makes it an heirloom rather than an asset. A store of meaning, honestly priced, not a store of profit.
Both are diamonds. Only one is rare. We sell both, plainly.
Side by side, franker than usual
The table most stores will not print. Words only, on purpose: every number on this page comes from the live inventory below, never from marketing copy.
| Natural, The Rare | Lab-Grown, The Brilliant | |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Formed in the mantle of the earth over about a billion years, mined and found once. | Grown in weeks in a reactor built to grow it. Same carbon, same crystal. |
| Rarity | Genuinely finite. Rough production is falling as mines close, with none being built. | Not rare. Supply grows as growers improve, which is why prices keep falling. |
| Resale reality | Partial and uncertain. We do not sell natural stones as investments; we back them with the house trade-up guarantee instead. | Close to none, and we say so before you pay. A purchase of beauty, not a store of value. |
| Grading | The same independent laboratories, the same scales. The report states the origin. | The same independent laboratories, the same scales. The report states the origin. |
| How we price it | Round house numbers on finished pieces; loose stones priced to the live market. Never a charm ending, never a discount. | Priced to a falling market, to the dollar, and repriced as it moves. The fall is passed to you, not kept as margin. |
| Who tends to choose it | Anniversaries, collectors, natural-first bridal, anyone who means the piece to be handed down with its origin. | Size-at-a-budget engagement, statement pieces, self-purchase, briefs where the look is the point. |
Each column has its own lane on this site, told in its own voice: The Rare for natural, The Brilliant for lab-grown.
Two stones, one budget
Here is the choice as it actually presents itself: one budget, and the best of each kind we would offer against it, live from our inventory.
Two Stones
One budget: CA$8,000. Both diamonds. Read them side by side.
Reading the inventory.
Live from our inventory, priced to the dollar at today's market. The natural stone is smaller for the money and rarer for good. The lab stone is larger for the money and will not hold its price. Both are true at once.
How we would decide
If the moment is the point, and the size on the hand carries the moment, choose lab-grown and choose it without apology. Put the difference into the make of the stone and the quality of the setting, where it will be seen every day.
If permanence is the point, if the stone is meant to be handed down with its story attached, choose natural and accept the smaller stone gladly. Rarity was the point of the purchase, and rarity is what you bought.
And if you are undecided, sit with both. The same grades read differently on different hands and under different light. Both kinds are graded the same way by the same laboratories; our guide to the 4 C's and what lies beyond them explains what the reports do and do not tell you.
There is no wrong answer. There is only an honest one.
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Fifth generation in the diamond trade · a Masters in Polished Diamonds
Asked, answered plainly
Is a lab-grown diamond a real diamond?
Yes. It is carbon crystallised in the same structure, with the same hardness and the same optics. A trained eye cannot separate the two without instruments. What differs is origin, scarcity and price behaviour.
Do lab-grown diamonds hold their value?
No, and we will not tell you otherwise. Lab-grown prices have fallen steeply for years and resale recovers little. Buy lab for the size and the occasion, never as a thing you expect to resell.
Do natural diamonds hold their value?
Better than lab-grown, but we do not sell natural diamonds as investments either. A natural stone is a store of meaning first. Scarcity is real, resale is uncertain, and honesty costs us nothing.
Which should I choose for an engagement ring?
If the size on the hand matters most at a set budget, lab-grown buys more carat. If rarity and permanence of origin matter most, natural. We stock both and will say plainly which serves your brief.
How does Dagarias price natural and lab-grown differently?
Lab-grown stones are priced to a falling live market, to the dollar, and repriced as it moves. Natural stones are priced to the market they actually trade in, and finished pieces carry round house numbers. Neither carries the other's story as a markup.