An innovative company in Illinois, LifeGem, has found a way to memorialize a loved by converting their ashes to diamond in a patented process that mimics the real thing. Imagine wearing your loved one on an alternative jewelry pendant, keeping them close to your heart even after they’re gone. While some people might consider the practice a bit morbid, there are many other people flocking to LifeGem to have that eternal memorial of their loved one in the form of a diamond.
How It Works
The process is not at all complex, and it resolves the age-old problem of what to do with a loved ones remains when they are cremated. Instead of using decorative earns or scattering the ashes and forgetting them, now you have the option of sending them to LifeGem who will make a diamond from as little as eight ounces of ashes or even locks of hairs.
Lifegem takes the ashes and extracts as much carbon as they can from them. The carbon is then heated up so that it can be converted to graphite. This is the basis material used in a diamond press to create a diamond under the right heat and pressure settings. What pops out is a rough diamond.
How It Compares
This man-made diamond is, of course, no comparison to real diamonds in actual value. Synthetic diamonds are typically less valuable than natural diamonds. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t share many of the same attributes of natural diamonds. It will have the same hardness as a diamond found in nature. They also sparkle as good as the real thing too. The impurities in the LifeGem diamond are dependent on the impurities present in the carbon derived form the ashes.
Considerations
The cost of a LifeGem diamond can vary from $3,000 to almost $20,000. However, you can ask for it to be mounted on pendants, rings, or any other form of jewelry. The most popular requests are for rings and pendants, probably due to the sentimental nature of these forms of jewelry.
Diamond size and color is limited to less than one carat and the color is variable, depending on inherent impurities in the carbon. The company touts many pleased customers who love the idea of wearing their loved one around their neck or on their finger. This is definitely a way to commemorate a strong bond and keep memories of your loved one close by. It’s also a way to hold a physical object that is a part of who they are, even when their body no longer exists.
The secondary market for diamonds under one carat has always been weak, but for diamonds made from ashes it is probably non-existent. Thus, it’s not an investment purchase, and should be based more on how much enjoyment one receives from having a piece of a loved one nearby, and not the actual money spent to convert the ashes to diamond. That is, unless you’ve managed to get a hold of Michael Jackson’s ashes and converted them into diamonds. At that point, they might be worth far more than the actual value of the diamond purchase.