ON JULY 24, the Federal Trade Commission’s jewelry guidelines were revised to include laboratory-grown diamonds in the commission’s definition of diamonds.
The FTC’s previous definition of a diamond was: “A natural mineral consisting essentially of pure carbon crystallized in the isometric system.”
The new listing does not include the word “natural.” “When the commission first used this definition in 1956, there was only one type of diamond product on the market — natural stones mined from the earth,” the FTC said. “Since then, technological advances have made it possible to create diamonds in a laboratory. These stones have essentially the same optical, physical and chemical properties as mined diamonds. Thus, they are diamonds.”
Which of the following terms are you allowed to use to describe laboratory-grown diamonds, according to the FTC. (The figures in parentheses reflect the answers of your fellow jewelers who took the Big Survey)
Laboratory-grown
 94% |
Manmade
56% |
Laboratory-created
47% |
Synthetic
35% |
(Manufacturer-name)-created
34% |
Cultured
20% |
Simulant
 7% |
Imitation
6% |
The descriptions in orange are fine, based on the FTC guidelines, while those in red are not. How did you do?
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