Melbourne client care · Made in Surat
Lab grown technology makes fancy coloured diamonds — yellow, pink, blue and other colours — accessible at a fraction of the cost of natural coloured diamonds. This guide explains how lab grown coloured diamonds are created, how they are graded and what to look for when choosing a coloured stone.
A fancy coloured diamond is a diamond — real diamond, same carbon crystal structure — that exhibits a dominant colour other than the colourless-to-yellow range assessed on the standard D-Z grading scale. Intense yellows, pinks, blues, greens, oranges and other colours all qualify as fancy colour.
In natural diamonds, these colours are extremely rare and extraordinarily expensive. A natural fancy vivid pink diamond can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per carat. Natural blue diamonds are rarer still. The rarity is what drives the price.
Lab grown technology changes this entirely. The atomic-level modifications that create colour in diamonds can be deliberately introduced during the growth process. Lab grown fancy yellow, pink and blue diamonds are available at accessible price points — bringing genuinely beautiful coloured diamonds into reach for engagement ring buyers who would never have considered a natural coloured stone.
The colour in a diamond comes from specific atomic-level characteristics of the crystal structure. Understanding how each colour is created helps buyers understand what they are purchasing.
| Colour | How It Is Created in Lab Grown | Growth Method |
|---|---|---|
| Fancy Yellow | Nitrogen atoms incorporated into the crystal lattice during growth absorb blue light, causing the stone to appear yellow. The concentration and arrangement of nitrogen determines the intensity of the yellow colour. | HPHT — nitrogen is easily incorporated during high-pressure growth |
| Fancy Pink | Pink in lab grown is typically created by introducing structural defects (specifically vacancy clusters) into the crystal during growth or via post-growth irradiation and HPHT treatment. The precise mechanism differs between producers. | CVD or HPHT, often with post-growth treatment |
| Fancy Blue | Boron atoms incorporated into the crystal lattice absorb red and infrared light, creating blue colour. The same mechanism as natural blue diamonds (Type IIb). Very small boron concentrations create significant blue colour. | CVD — boron doping during gas plasma growth |
| Green | Irradiation of the crystal lattice after growth creates green colour — the same mechanism as naturally occurring green diamonds, which were irradiated underground. | CVD or HPHT, post-growth irradiation |
| Champagne / Cognac | Brown colour from structural defects in the crystal lattice. Can be controlled in growth to create warm champagne to deep cognac tones. | HPHT or CVD |
Fancy coloured diamonds are graded on a completely different scale to white (colourless) diamonds. On the standard D-Z scale, colour is a defect — less colour is better. On the fancy colour scale, more colour is generally better.
| IGI Fancy Colour Grade | Description |
|---|---|
| Fancy Light | The lightest end of the fancy colour range — colour is visible but not intense |
| Fancy | Clear, definite colour — the entry point for true fancy colour designation |
| Fancy Dark | Dark tone but moderate saturation — colour is clearly present |
| Fancy Intense | Strong, vivid colour — the most commercially popular grade range for most colours |
| Fancy Deep | Very strong, deeply saturated colour |
| Fancy Vivid | Maximum colour saturation — the highest grade and most valuable in most colours |
Fancy yellow is the most widely available and most accessible lab grown fancy colour. The warm, luminous yellow tone ranges from light lemon to deep golden — and at Fancy Intense to Fancy Vivid grades, the colour is immediately striking.
Pink diamonds carry the most romantic associations of any coloured stone. Natural fancy pink diamonds are among the rarest and most expensive gemstones in the world — the Argyle mine in Australia, historically the primary source of natural pink diamonds, closed in 2020. Lab grown has made genuine pink diamonds accessible.
Blue diamonds are among the most famous and historically significant coloured gemstones in existence. The Hope Diamond, the Wittelsbach-Graff — the most celebrated diamonds in history are blue. Natural blue diamonds are extraordinarily rare. Lab grown blue diamonds bring genuine blue diamond character within reach.
Common questions about fancy coloured lab grown diamonds.
Book a free online consultation. Yash Chandpara shows fancy yellow, pink and blue lab grown diamonds on screen and explains the colour grades and metal pairings that work best.
