The next time you go to your hairdressers, you might like to consider the value of what is left lying on the floor.
In the ‘Roaring Twenties’ the world was first introduced to the cultured pearl, which threw the pearl industry into spasms. Now the same revolution is taking place in the sparkling world of diamonds, with the introduction of cultured diamonds.
These have the same quality as colourless diamonds, making it impossible for professional gemologists to tell the difference, either chemically, optically, or physically. Both stones have the same hardness, specific gravity, refraction index and dispersion factor. Both are polished using the exact same techniques and equipment. The only difference is the point of origin.
The New Age Diamond company in Russia offers to create a cultured diamond from your hair, using the same conditions as when diamonds are formed through extreme volcanic forces beneath the earth’s surface.
With approximately 1 gram’s weight of your hair, the company adds approximately 1 gram’s weight of carbon and runs it through their HPHT (high pressure, high temperature) machine. The ‘seed’ is heated up to 5,400 degrees. Slowly the diamond begins to form, atom by atom. A diamond is crystalized over a 6-9 month period, created from your DNA.
The company however, offers only cultivated diamonds that are yellow, green and red in colour, costing on average, one third the price of a natural diamond. Fancy colour diamonds represent the fasted growing trend in the diamond industry, worldwide.
The company also says it can create diamonds from a new-born baby’s hair, or hair from a pet dog, cat, horse or rabbit, or even from cremated ashes. Hair may even be collected from two or three different sources.
Now a United States company, VadenBiesen says it is going to create approximately 10 diamonds from a lock of Michael Jackson’s hair. The company also claims it created three diamonds from locks of Beethoven’s hair in 2007 and sold one of them for around $200,000.
The first diamond was made from hair several years ago, from 40 grams of beard trimmings. It took quite a while to collect the amount of beard trimmings needed. Carbon was extracted from the trimmings and a .85 carat, 58 faceted diamond was produced.
The largest diamond made from hair to date, is 2.00 carat. That required around 100 grams of clean hair. Phoenix Diamonds has also created a diamond from an umbilical cord.
Perhaps institutions, like the armed forces, or prisons, that specialize in a certain type of hair style, could put all the ‘leftovers’ to better value, than just throwing the hair clippings into the rubbish. Hairdressers to the stars may find themselves with a valuable by-product to their business.
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August 11th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Hair For Diamonds…
When you go to the hairdressers for your next hair cut, you might like to have a few thoughts of the value of what is left lying on the ground, before an assistant sweeps it away….