They are not some plastic creation made on an assembly line somewhere, but the natural secretions of the mussel, slowly surrounding a foreign irritant in its shell.
Some might still protest that they are not real because the process was not started naturally, but with the intervention of man. This is an arguable point.
What about a diamond? Over the years there have been several different versions of the fake diamond. Hundreds of years back in history, the first artificial diamonds were created from lead crystal, probably sifted from the Rhine River, or made from glass.
These were often used to replace real gem stones that had to be sold off, or to give the appearance of wealth one did not have. The same could be said even today.
The later version of the fake diamond would be the cubic zirconia. This is a man made version of a naturally occurring mineral called zirconium oxide. The cubic zirconia was discovered in its natural state in the very late 1800's.
It is rare to find this substance and the quantities are too small to be very marketable. Russian scientist perfected a process for making cubic zirconia in a laboratory in the 1970's and thus started its commercial production.
Good quality cubic zirconias are optically close to a diamond, and unless you are an experienced professional, you may not be able to tell the difference.
Though a cubic zirconia is not a natural diamond, they can be flawless. Flawless natural diamonds are extremely rare and astronomically expensive. The cubic zirconia however is affordable to most people, are also made in many different colors, shapes, and sizes.
Synthetic diamonds or cultured diamonds, as they are sometimes called, are produced through chemical or physical processes in factories. The extreme physical properties of a synthetic diamond, is not the same as Diamond like Carbon.
A synthetic diamond is composed of a three dimensional carbon crystal like a natural diamond. Synthetic diamonds are molecularly the same as carbon allotrope, which refers to naturally formed diamonds.
Synthetics can have greater purity and hardness than real diamonds sometimes. At least with the synthetic diamond whose properties are the same as those of a natural diamond, why would it not be considered real? This conclusion must left to the person who owns one.
