I knew lab grown gems were cheap before but YouTube shorts recommended me a guy who facets cheap lab grown crystals and now I want cool rocks that couldn’t make the cut for being used in lasers and the other things they use labgrown precious gems for
IDK why I find the rock more endearing knowing it is a failure of an equipment rock
*holds up ring* It’s a rescue! 🤣
Like those dogs that fail out of service school
Love this way of looking at it!!!
… actually this kinda fits into my view of lab grown gems as a collaboration between humanity and the rest of nature. Rather than being unnatural, it’s more a conversation that went like:
Human: hey nature! yknow that thing you do where you make certain elements grow into pretty crystals under certain conditions
Nature: yeah?
Human: i think that’s really cool? But i noticed in the conditions you usually have, it takes you thousands of years! Wanna team up, I think can help you do it more quickly
Nature: …you know, sure, why not! I’ll bring the elements and the natural laws that make them grow. And you can bring the environment that lets it happen faster…. Yeah, i think I like this much better than when you tear down whole mountains to dig up the ones that took me a thousand years. Let’s go.
and thinking about this, got me thinking about how I do find natural stones cool in their own special way, but it’s a way that makes me wanna mostly just leave them out in nature.
Which got me thinking (yeah i have a connection making mind!) about exotic animal keeping, and the difference between, for instance, a captive bred lizard and a wild lizard.
Both were grown in different environments from the same original material (a lizard egg), using similar processes (different specific food and substrates but the same basic necessities of life).
But the captive bred lizard is much more suited to being kept by a person. And in addition to being a better pet, more hardy, less stressed in captivity, it’s also less harmful to the original environment the species comes from.
All of which translates to gemstones as well. But a rejected laser gem is like a rescue pet– bred in captivity, then rejected by one human, but finally loved by another.
(same as my blue tongue skink, Doom. Which is why I have such warm feelings about this.)
❤️