When Evelyn Schaffer first saw her engagement ring, she was speechless.

It was a 0.76-carat, oval-cut stunner — and he said no one had been able to tell that the diamonds were created in a lab.

“I’ve never seen anything like it and it’s gorgeous,” Schaffer said. “The lab-grown diamonds are actually more sparkly in my opinion.”

As consumer awareness grows, the popularity of gems that are manufactured, not mined, is surging.

By some estimates, lab-grown diamonds make up nearly 20 per cent of the total global diamond jewelry market.