Curious why you shouldn't buy diamonds? You may have noticed that we did not release a diamond as our April stone of the month. To all of our April babies, we promise it’s not because we don’t love you (because we do). We just want you to have the most special stone that aligns with our values, as well as yours. Diamonds are commonly referred to as society's stone, a stone that has been so commercialized based on social status and made up traditions. Below is an explanation of the history of diamonds and a few reasons why we don’t offer them as an option for the Self Love Pinky Ring.
- Diamonds were literally created as a marketing campaign after the De Beers company found an outrageous supply of diamonds in South Africa in 1938 and they needed to make people think that they were, in fact, valuable and scarce.
- Diamonds aren’t actually that rare, they have been hoarded by the same company, and group of companies, that found them in South Africa. They are now holding a monopoly over them and are making them harder to get with an ever increasing price tag.
- The diamond mining industry is destroying our environment. A lot of diamond mining is unregulated and therefore there is no control over its impact on the environment. Mining is not sustainable and is creating extreme amounts of waste for a small amount of stones on top of destroying biodiversity in the areas that are mined. If that wasn’t bad enough, they are also releasing extensive amounts of carbon emissions into the air from diamond exploration and mining. We love mother Earth, and we don’t want to hurt her.
- The grading system is shady and changes based on the supply of diamonds, so your supposedly perfect stone really could have been close to a reject a few months prior. You don’t have that problem when your stones are lab-created and every one of them is perfect.
- Almost 25% of diamonds sold today are blood diamonds, meaning they are sourced from slavery, abuse, bloodshed and conflict. The mega-corp De Beers is also known for using child labor.
- After this blood diamond scandal was announced, the marketing team behind De Beers started another campaign with “conflict free” diamonds for a premium price. This made people willing to pay more for their seemingly better diamonds, even though there isn’t too much proof that these diamonds are actually conflict free.
- If you don’t do your research, diamond sellers will be more than happy to take your money and give you a poor diamond for 10x the price. Diamonds will never be worth what you pay for them retail, and you’ll be lucky if you can get even a quarter of what you paid for it back.
Before diamonds became popular, engagement rings were full of many different colorful stones and precious metals, making them unique and special for each women that had one on her hand. We want to honor this tradition and for each of our shining woman to have a ring that is special to them, with meaningful and conflict-free stones.
For all of the reasons above, we decided to forego the diamond and introduce our stunning Opal Self Love Pinky Ring (available in the Mini style). Aside from their pure beauty, our opals are also lab-created, meaning that they are kinder to the environment and conflict-free. Be sure to check out our blog post about all the magical qualities of Opal and pick one up before they’re gone!