The Reason More People Are Wearing Lab-Grown Diamonds Like Meghan Markle's

Lab-grown diamonds are man-made diamonds created in a lab. Unlike traditional mined diamonds, lab-grown diamonds don't require large holes to be cut and drilled into the ground. Instead, they use carbon from fossil fuels to mimic the natural diamond-growing process. Because of this, they are chemically and aesthetically similar to mined diamonds.

Although lab-grown diamonds are becoming more popular, they were first "grown" in the 1950s through a high-pressure, high-temperature process similar to mining. "A carbon seed was placed within a sealed chamber with carbon-rich gas, then heated to around 800 degrees Celsius until the gases started to 'stick' to the seed, which grew a diamond carbon atom by atom," Warch explains to POPSUGAR.