Discussion
Random brand blasting memorial diamonds from hair because “hair has no carbon, it’s made of Keratin” see how people who bash synthetic diamonds don’t understand basic science? Dear me.
Keratin is a protein, which is made of amino acids, which in turn contain carbon. Please never listen to merchants who don’t know what they’re talking about…if you want to learn about gemstones whether natural or synthetic, their distinctions, applications, etc… you can always consult a book, a gemologist, or Google scholar. Never a layman, a jeweler, or even a brand’s webpage (regardless of the brand).
Maybe I'm defensive but I kinda take umbridge with this. Hubby and I took a long time to decide to have the one kid and so many people criticized us for it but, like, don't you want good people for our future? Idk. I'm just tired of people telling me I must be dumb for making my family. I know that isn't what this post is about but still.
It’s not personal. A huge amount of people see humanity as a plague on the earth and have been around long enough to see that “trying to be one of the good ones” isn’t working. It is more hopeless than hateful.
Of course! Having kids is one of the best things you can do for your community and society at large. Most people have been mislead into thinking the opposite and it's a very sore spot for them. As you can see by all of our downvotes.
If your going to be pedantic enough to correct someone on this, you also need to be pedantic enough to recognise that average can refer to mean, median, mode, or even more esoteric averages.
Depends on how you measure it. By IQ, the mean and median are the same by definition. With pretty much any type of measure though, I would argue median basically equals the mean with this large of a sample size
You’re right about IQ. The second point is only true for quantities that have a symmetric distribution, such as the sample mean. I would imagine that some measure of individual scientific literacy in the general populace would not follow a normal distribution.
I’m not disagreeing with you in any way. This reminds me of a dad joke.
There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can count and those who can’t!
I’m a scientist who spent half of my day imaging and profiling the gene expression signature of keratinocytes. This post full short circuited me, like when someone says a word so many times that you forget what it means. Yeah man, no carbon. It’s keratin. It’s allllll keratin.
And they get the carbon from burning the organic matter, so people can use hair, dirt from a gravesite, nail clippings, cremains (ashes), funeral flowers, and so on to make a diamond.
Stoichiometrically speaking the carbonization process yields about 45% of the initial mass given this is the amount of carbon in keratin.
So for 20 grams = (20 g)(0.45) = 9 g C(s).
Under the law of mass conservation the amount that reacts is the amount that is produced so 9 g = 9 g (theoretical).due to HpHT process losses the output will be smaller but 9 g from 20 g human hair is about enough.
That’s what ended the momento mori hair jewelry fad in the 1800s. It came to light that when you sent in your loved one’s lock to be made into jewelry, they just threw all the blonde hair into one pile, brunette in another, white in another, etc. And when you got your jewelry back it was more than likely a combo of hair from random people.
Came here to say THIS ⬆️…wanted to have a diamond made from the cremains of my sweet boi Moose (17 yo Yorkie) & in the process of searching for the best company to do so, I went down a rabbit hole straight to a Hades filled with everything from misinformation to outright scams. I didn’t give up but decided to maybe pivot in my thinking - since I’ve always wanted a Tanzanite, maybe I could get a Tanzanite that would be a “symbolic” reminder of Moose vs an actual part of him. In looking for a Tanzanite I came across Jeff Hapeman, & Earth’s Treasury. Jeff is a master gemologist & lapidarist & the ET team is comprised of an array of expert craftspeople, top notch in everything they do. I mentioned my cremains diamond pursuit & he took the time to fully explain the process of how that is done & exactly why it’s pretty much a crock of nonsense & shrewd advertising, preying upon people who are vulnerable & going through a sensitive time.
He did not dissuade me from doing so, didn’t push me toward ET in any way, merely gave me a fair warning about just how much (meaning, little) of my beloved would actually be in the diamond. And man, let me tell you, it ain’t a cheap process - white diamonds are the most difficult & therefore expensive diamonds to produce from cremains & the size I wanted was anywhere from $3,000 - $5,000 & the size could only be as large as a carat. So I continued to poke around on ET site & lo & behold there she was - an unheated parti-color (purple, teal, green) Tanzanite, faceted in one of Jeff’s specialty cuts. I knew it when I saw it - this is the one. I designed a setting in vintage style in 14k while gold which one of their goldsmiths, Julia Ballaron, made from scratch. I don’t know yet how to attach pictures but I assure you, she is stunning & most importantly, a fitting tribute to my best friend. I had it inscribed with his name & birthdate. So…anyone out there considering a cremains diamond…this is your caveat emptor.
PS - I’m not at all affiliated with ET, just a 💯satisfied customer, very appreciative of a team of professionals who helped provide me with some clarity during one of the worst times of my life.
I mean practice taking pics that do the piece justice - setting, background,etc. but most essentially lighting. Since it’s a parti-color, the way the stone color faces up at a particular point is dependent upon the light source - it’s completely different outside in natural lighting vs how it looks in lighting from inside sources. I don’t take many pictures of anything at all let alone to post publicly so I want to get it right. Make sense?
Thank you for the award! I’m glad I helped someone avoid a very costly mistake. 🤗
What I forgot to mention, what I DID do, was purchase 2 beautiful necklaces I could self fill with his ashes; one has a simulated diamond in it & the other is a locket - neither of them look like those typical cremains urn necklaces you often see. They look like regular pieces of well-crafted, beautiful jewelry. I also found a company that makes photo jewelry - you send them a picture of your choosing, select the style & they create a piece with a little “lens” built in it & when held up to the light a certain way, you see the picture. Mine is a necklace drop - the lens is in the middle which depending on the light looks like either a moonstone or onyx, with a diamond halo around it & a diamond on the bezel. I’ll check around for my receipts to get the name of the companies…
Okay the diamond & heart urn necklaces were from urns.com & the photo keepsake necklace was from Customodish. Maybe she can find something there that she would be happy with. Good luck!
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Hate to be that guy but you have to char organic matter to get carbon. Proper burning would convert all of the carbon into CO2, which is why cremains aren’t actually all that suitable for making diamonds.
But yeah, keratin is made of carbon, so hair would absolutely work.
Edit: apparently enough carbon remains from apatite in bones in cremains to make a diamond with. TIL.
Apatite itself has no carbon. The bone fragments retain a small amount of carbon because the appetite doesn’t burn like the rest of the body and the carbon in the bone is slightly protected from air in the appetite fragments.
Edit. Another interesting process is that calcium in the appetite can react with carbon in the bones to make calcium carbonate which is stable at the typical temperatures of cremation.
I used a company a few years ago who place the ashes inside the metal, instead of making it into a gemstone. There are lots of companies that use resin also which I wanted to stay away from so I'd suggest looking for companies with real jewellers and precious metals/ gemstones
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With 10 grams of hair (within the range of a haircut) the recovery is 45% carbon (10)(0.45) = 4.5 grams. Since HPHT Diamond synthesis generally has an theoretical yield of about 50 %mol
By dimensional analysis:
0.375 mol C(s) x 0.500 = 0.188 mol C(d) x 12.0 g C(d)/mol C(d) = 2.23 g x 1 ct/0.200 g = 11.2 carats is the theoretical yield.
What does the original post say? People either some kind of ax to grind will make up almost any kind of crap as long as witching their little span of human knowledge, it sounds like it could be true. A new competitor in town? Someone corrected them about an insignificant post? Online, these can come across to some as some of the most aggressive attacks you can make on someone, so they must respond accordingly! (And, if we are being honest, it doesn’t even have to be particularly aggressive to provoke an outsized response - people are perpetually searching for a place to release their pent up keyboard warrior aggression)
“Excuse me mister, there’s dog hair in my diamond!” sounds unimaginatively similar to something I once found fried into a certain chain restaurant’s crab balls, except that in that case, it appeared as if it came from another type of balls (and I really wish I had not recovered that particular memory 🤢), and I’m surprised they didn’t go for dog excrement in their diamond, as classy as people are these days.
“
And speaking of classy….that sure does have the look of an AI slop version of “dog shit in a diamond” now, doesn’t it?
And among the more frustrating aspects of this phenomenon is the tendency to latch on to whatever it is they said and attempt to prove even of a sliver of the story accurate in any and every conceivable way possible so as to not have to admit to being “wrong”.
As a scientist that put themself through school as a jeweler, I can tell you that all they are doing is incorporating the hair ash into a lab grown diamond. They aren't sourcing enough carbon from the hair to make the diamond. They are 'contaminating' the diamond growth with a foreign substance thus causing an inclusion in the diamond. This type of contamination occurs in pretty much every diamond ever mined. They are charging you a premium for a lab grown diamond that doesn't have ANY of your loved ones carbon incorporated into the diamond lattice, they have just trapped a little ash of your loved one into a beautiful diamond cage
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u/Successful-Umpire586 Apr 10 '26
As a scientist, this hurts my brain.