Why more Marylanders are choosing lab-grown diamonds over natural diamonds.

Diamonds are a luxury, but the diamond dream is becoming more attainable with technology. Now more people are choosing lab-grown diamonds over natural diamonds.

More than half of couples (52%) have an engagement ring with a lab-grown stone, according to a 2025 survey by the wedding planning platform The Knot. The study surveyed nearly 17,000 U.S.-based couples who got married in 2024. That's a 40% jump from 2019.

So, why are more people choosing lab-grown over natural diamonds?

Bloomstone Jewelers in Annapolis sells lab-grown diamonds exclusively. The team even crafted the crown worn by Miss USA 2025. It includes 602 lab-grown diamonds, pearls, London blue topaz and lab-grown blue sapphires. The crown is valued at about $250,000.

Though the top seller for Bloomstone Jewelers is engagement rings, followed by diamond studs. Founder Constance Polamalu sees a lot of young couples choosing lab-grown diamonds for engagement rings.

"They want to be able to get something really impactful and special without a crazy budget," said Polamalu.

The cost of lab-grown diamonds 

Cost is a big benefit of buying lab-grown diamonds. A two-carat natural diamond can cost anywhere from $12,000 to $24,000, but Polamalu said a two-carat lab-grown diamond can be priced less than $3,000.

"When we think about lab-grown diamonds, we think about their being produced better, and faster and bigger and more efficiently, consistently, which means that the price can lower and regulate," said Polamalu.

Pricing for lab-grown diamonds is incremental.

"So, it might be $1,500 then $3,000 then you know $4,500, in really stair-stepped increments, versus natural, you'll see the difference between a two and a three-carat could be $20,000 or $30,000," Polamalu explained.

Do lab-grown diamonds hold up? 

A diamond is a diamond, whether natural or lab-grown. Physically, natural and lab-grown diamonds have the same durability.

Lab-grown diamonds are chemically, physically and optically identical to natural diamonds, but their origins are in a lab.

"It's very durable, so you don't have to worry about wearing it every day," Polamalu said. "You get that same benefit with lab-grown, but it's a lot less money."

The primary difference between them is in long-term value retention. Lab-grown diamonds generally do not hold their price over time compared to natural ones.

Lab-grown diamonds have depreciated significantly over the last decade. In 2015, lab-grown diamonds were sold at a 10% discount to their natural counterparts. Now, it's a 90% discount, but Polamalu said prices seem to have steadied now.

How lab-grown diamonds are made 

Lab-grown diamonds take just weeks to produce, versus the billions of years it takes for a diamond to form naturally. 

At Bloomstone Jewelers, they sell Clarity Diamonds, which are created in a lab in Austin, Texas. Polamalu said once everything is in place, it takes about two weeks to grow a one-carat diamond.

"The light version of how they're made is you take carbon and high-pressure high temperature settings, and you try to replicate what the earth did 2 to 3 billion years ago," said Polamalu.

Strong opinions on natural vs. lab-grown

People in the jewelry industry have strong opinions on lab-grown diamonds, but Polamalu believes that if you pull back the curtain and ask why, it has less to do with the customer's needs and more to do with businesses' bottom line and their own historic feelings.

"[Other retailers] would kind of joke that, oh well, I keep my lab-grown diamonds in the naughty corner with all of the other things that I don't really want to sell," Polamalu explained. "And I was like, well, why would you sell them? Why would you treat people like that?"

Polamalu shared one of the reasons she wanted to open Bloomstone Jewelers as an exclusively lab-grown diamond retailer was because how her competitors were selling lab-grown diamonds didn't feel respectful.

"In general, when someone goes to spend money on fine jewelry, they're spending what they can, which means that that's a lot of money, and you should be treated with respect when that happens," she said.

Alex Austholma recently worked with Bloomstone to craft a one-of-a-kind piece, an asymmetrical, off-center, pear-shaped pinky ring. It was a gift from her husband to commemorate the birth of their first child, a baby boy.

It's not the only piece of lab-grown jewelry she wears. She also had on her engagement ring and tennis bracelet, both made with lab-grown diamonds.

"I know some people might have hesitation or feel that it's not real, and that just never was the case for me," Austholma said. "I don't know, I believe in science, and that a chemically made diamond is still a diamond, you know whether it's found in the rough or created."

For her, choosing a lab-grown diamond to commemorate the birth of her son gave her the flexibility to design exactly what she wanted and choose a bigger stone.

"I think the diamond dream has always been aspirational and sometimes unattainable, but lab-grown diamonds present an opportunity for people to have a really beautiful diamond that's still going to last the test of time," said Polamalu.

Are lab-grown diamonds more ethical?

Is buying a lab-grown diamond more ethical than buying a natural diamond?

Polamalu's response might surprise you.

"In terms of the environment, the best of the best in lab-grown versus the best of the best of natural diamonds, you would see probably a 10 percent improvement on environmental impact with lab-grown, but you would see a higher job creation in natural," she said.

Polamalu explained that the debate about what's more ethical is complicated, and it shouldn't be oversimplified.

"I've seen a lot of green washing that I personally don't want to engage in because I've seen firsthand how good natural diamonds can be for an economy like Botswana, where I went last year," she said.

Polamalu's advice is to "buy what you know." If ethics drives you as a person, she suggests shopping from a retailer you know, somewhere that's paying their workers well, works with trusted vendors, and supports their community.