DIAMONDS WITHOUT GUILT

THEY'RE REAL - BUT MADE BY MAN. SYNTHETIC STONES PROMISE...

By MARINA VATAJ

Gemesis takes four days to "grow" a diamond like the ones seen here.

Excerpt:

December 4, 2006 — DIAMONDS, they say, are forever. But this holiday season, you could get one that is considerably younger. That's because for the first time New Yorkers can buy a diamond made not by thousands of years of underground compression, but four days in a machine. Synthetic diamonds retail for 75 percent less than those dug from the Earth - but they aren't cubic zirconia or moissanite. They're real.

"We essentially create the environment in which diamonds grow by emulating what occurs below the Earth's surface in a laboratory setting," says Clark McEwen, chief operating officer for Gemesis, the Florida-based company devoted to growing gem-quality diamonds. "There are no differences. They are made from exactly the same material that natural diamonds are made from."

With the new Leonardo DiCaprio flick "Blood Diamond" hitting theatres, it's no surprise that alternatives to politically incorrect conflict diamonds are sparking serious interest. In addition to creating synthetics, more companies, particularly those that mine in Canada, now advertise their wares as non-conflict gems.

Gemesis' synthetics are made using the tiny shard of a real diamond, which grows, molecule by molecule, after carbon and nitrogen are added under extreme heat and pressure.

Even the Gemological Institute of America - the foremost diamond research group - recognizes these diamonds as authentic. "They are exact in terms of physical, chemical and optical properties," says Dr. James Shigley, research director for GIA. "The only people who would be able to recognize that these diamonds weren't grown under ground are trained gemologists - and even they'd have to use a microscope."

(click excerpt above to continue story in the NY Post.)