‍How Many Diamonds Can Be Made From Ashes?

Losing a loved one is a difficult experience that requires you to make challenging decisions about how best to say goodbye. While there are a variety of different options apart from traditional burial services, such as scattering ashes in a special place or planning a destination funeral, it's important to consider your loved one's wishes, your own healing journey, and how to use the experience to find closure and preserve their legacy.

One unique way to continue honoring a loved one after their death is to give their cremation ashes new life. Using a small portion of cremated remains, Eterneva can create a unique eternal diamond to accompany you through your grieving process and beyond.

What's even better? Because the process only requires a small amount of ashes from which to extract the necessary carbon to grow a diamond, you can choose to make multiple gems for family members and friends, so everyone who loved this special person can carry a piece of them in their own lives.

What is cremation jewelry?

Cremation diamonds, also known as memorial diamonds, change the way we remember life. Through their unique design, which reflects your one-of-a-kind loved one's story, cremation diamonds evoke positive emotions and memories in your everyday life. And it's not only for humans; remarkable pets can be memorialized as diamonds too. Explore custom cremation jewelry ideas to remember that furry friend who put its paw by your side whenever you felt sad, angry, or happy.

You may wonder how cremation ashes or hair turn into diamonds. The process uses state-of-the-art scientific processes that employ heat and pressure to mimic how the Earth forms naturally occurring diamonds. Each resulting diamond is unique and takes months to create, during which Eterneva works closely with you to make the journey as unique and precious as the loved one you are commemorating.

A Remarkable Process: How is a cremation diamond created?

Our laboratory gemologists grow a diamond from the carbon in your loved one's ashes through a seven-stage process. 

The journey starts when you order our welcome kit. This kit contains all the instructions and tools required to send us your loved one's ashes and begin their transformation.

A purification process isolates the carbon from all other elements found in human ashes or hair. The carbon content that remains after the cremation process -carbonates- is purified and extracted. Eterneva then uses high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) machines to create each cremation jewelry piece. These conditions ensure that your loved one's carbon crystallizes on a diamond seed, growing into a unique raw diamond.

With just a half cup of ashes or a handful of hair, the process can extract enough carbon to create multiple diamonds.

Once the rough diamond is fully formed, a quality assessment guarantees the target shape and size, then the gemstone goes to the cutting phase where Eterneva's artisans cut and polish the diamond with care and precision. 

Before the final touches, each diamond undergoes certification by the International Gemology Institute (IGI), guaranteeing its authenticity. This process also meticulously inspects the diamond's high clarity, color, and cut to ensure the highest quality.

Finally, to personalize your experience, finishing touches allow for custom engravings and options to set the stone in a variety of unique jewelry settings, such as a memorial ring, cremation pendant, or stunning necklace (or a custom setting of your choice).

The journey culminates in your loved one returning home to you, reborn into a beautiful diamond. The diamond is delivered directly to your hands in an engraved box. This profoundly personal treasure often marks a new chapter in your healing process.

How much carbon is contained in ashes?

Carbon is the most critical component in the memorial diamond creation process. But where does this element come from? As an essential building block of life, carbon atoms constantly cycle through living organisms, including humans and pets. Even after cremation, the remaining human and pet ashes still contain some carbon.

It's important to understand that several factors, such as body weight and the presence of other materials can influence the amount of extractable carbon from cremated ashes. A single cremation typically produces around 2-3 kg of cremated remains (cremains, not "cremains"), which may contain between 20-120 grams of carbon. So, even if you create several diamonds from the ashes, there are usually still plenty of ashes remaining for other memorial options, such as planting a memorial tree or scattering them in a special place.

How much ashes are needed to make a diamond?

The memorial diamond creation process only needs one gram of carbon to grow a diamond. It can grow approximately four to five diamonds with just ½ cup of cremated remains (varies by carbon content and diamond sizes), hair, or other sources of carbon such as dried flowers, photographs, cotton clothing, and more. This is perfect if you'd like to create diamonds for multiple family members or if you'd like to preserve the option to make more in the future.

If you are worried about losing the diamond, you can request that a small amount of carbon from the ashes is stored securely for regrowth.

Grief is a personal journey, and deciding on memorial jewelry ideas may take time. However, there's no time limit on honoring a loved one by wearing cremation jewelry, and cremation ashes remain suitable for creating cremation jewelry even if some time has passed.

Memorial diamond sizes, shapes, and colors

In addition to growing multiple diamonds from your loved one's ashes, you can also explore tons of options for how you want them to look. 

Depending on your preferences, cremation diamonds can be grown up to 1 carat in size. The creation process allows you to play with design styles tailored to you and your loved one's memory. You can choose between a variety of color options, including colorless, blue, yellow, green, black, and more. You can also choose the diamond's shape and cut, including round, cushion, asscher, radiant, emerald, and more. 

Depending on how you want to wear your cremation jewelry, you can decide how you want to set the diamond. Some people want the diamond set in a special ring that they can look at all the time and reminisce on memories. Others want their loved one next to their heart and prefer a necklace or pendant that holds them close. There are many different designs to choose from:

Cremation earrings

When choosing earrings, we often gravitate towards styles that best reflect our taste. As you select how you want your memorial jewelry to look, you can decide whether to incorporate your diamonds into studs, drops, clusters, dangles, or hoops.

Cremation pendants

While memorial diamonds offer a wide range of necklace design possibilities, cremation pendants hold a particular emotional value for those grieving a loss. These pendants provide a constant, tangible connection to your loved one, keeping their memory alive.

Cremation necklaces

A beautiful way to personalize a cremation pendant is to pair it with a unique necklace. This combination of memorial pendants and jewelry pieces creates an even more special and unique tribute to your loved one.

Cremation bracelets and watches

Like natural diamonds, memorial diamonds crafted from cremains offer exceptional brilliance and timeless beauty when they adorn the right setting. Incorporating them into bracelets or watches allows you to carry your loved one with you throughout each day.

Cremation rings

For those who prefer rings, cremation diamonds can be beautifully integrated into your favorite style. You can even personalize the color to reflect your loved one's personality, favorite pigment, or birthstone. For example, a blue diamond set in a sterling silver ring might offer a constant reminder of the tranquility and peace your loved one brought you.

Cremation jewelry that helps you heal

Grieving is complex, and more so if you're going through it alone. At Eterneva, our goal is to find positive ways of helping people process the ups and downs that surround death and change the conversation about what grief and the healing journey really mean. For us and many like us, cremation jewelry represents a source of hope and transformation and a way to discover post-traumatic peace. 

By creating one or more unique diamonds from a loved one or beloved pet, we can honor the legacy and remarkable life of those we have lost, reminding ourselves and others of the bright moments we shared with that special person or pet.