if you had to choose one of these for an engagement ring without knowing which is the real diamond or the cz, which one would you pick and why? i'm curious if people can actually tell the difference just by looking.
Been doing a lot of reading lately because I wanted to understand this properly before buying anything. From what I can tell lab grown rubies are physically and chemically identical to natural ones, same corundum structure, same hardness, same refractive index. The main difference seems to be origin and the inclusions you find inside them. Natural rubies form over millions of years under intense heat and pressure which is why they tend to have more internal characteristics. Lab grown ones are created in a controlled environment so they often come out cleaner. Neither is fake, thats the part I kept getting wrong at first. A lab grown ruby is still a real ruby just grown above ground instead of below it.