CIBJO Expects to Nix ‘Lab-Grown’ Terminology

The World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) plans to eliminate the terms “laboratory grown” and “laboratory created” from its Blue Book at its upcoming congress on September 4.

The organization made the decision after a year of consideration, concluding the words needed to be clearer to inform consumers effectively. CIBJO believed neither of those terms “described the products to which they had been applied,” it said last week. Meanwhile, it considered “synthetic” to be unambiguously clear when referring to gemstones, it explained.

“The ultimate goal remains protecting consumer confidence through the adoption of clear and descriptive language that transparently informs,” said Charles Abouchar, head of CIBJO’s colored-stone commission. “In making this move, it is hoped that the situation in the market will become clearer and the consumer will be properly informed.”

From September 2026, only the term “synthetic” can be used to describe “artificial products having essentially the same chemical composition, physical properties and structure as that of their naturally occurring counterparts,” the confederation stipulated.

CIBJO’s move to limit the wording for man-made stones comes on the heels of similar decisions from others in the natural-diamond industry. Last month, the Russian government declared that lab-grown diamonds set in jewelry needed to be referred to as “synthetic,” with their weight declared in grams, rather than carats, while the African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA) made the same call in May. At the start of the year, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) released its own set of rules to distinguish synthetics from natural, and the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) updated its terms in 2025.

Image: Lab-grown diamonds. (Shutterstock)