The great value of fancy colored diamonds has enticed many modern-day alchemists to try to recreate these rare and beautiful gems in their laboratories. As scientific knowledge of the causes of natural fancy colored diamonds increases, the efforts to create synthetic and treated colored diamonds become more successful. Synthetic diamonds are artificial diamonds that have been created in a laboratory. By varying the heat and pressure during formation, adding foreign elements, and irradiating the finished crystals, synthetic diamonds can be made to imitate natural colored stones. There is currently a wide spectrum of synthetic colored diamonds available.
Treated diamonds are natural diamonds that started out with an unappealing or slightly off color.
By exposing these less desirable stones to the same high-tech alchemy used to create synthetic colored diamonds, the color and appearance of these diamonds can be materially improved. Recently we have seen treated diamonds with vibrant yellowish green, red and blue colors enter the market. Natural fancy colored diamonds are significantly more valuable and rarer than comparable treated or synthetic stones. Although treated and synthetic diamonds can be beautiful in their own right, the origin of their color should be fully disclosed. They should also cost significantly less than natural diamonds.