Building the Color Treated Diamond Market
Interview with Rahul Karnavat, Lotus Colors, Inc.
Mr. Karnavat lives in a colorful world, and he shares it with us in these interviews from the 2013 Tucson Gem Show. Presenting a dazzling array of diamonds in a rainbow of enhanced colors, Mr. Karnavat explains his color-enhancing processes one by one.
Sensing the need for colored diamonds in a world with a growing shortage of naturally colored ones, Mr. Karnavat’s company, Lotus Colors, Inc., began irradiating diamonds in the early 1990s. Gradually, they added heat and high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) treatments and, most recently, a modern coating process.
Mr. Karnavat describes the coatings—actually extremely thin films—at length. He explains that they can result in many lovely colors, but they’re fragile, requiring care in setting, jewelry repair, and other procedures. An advantage of their fragility is that if a color goes out of style, Lotus can just give the color-coated diamonds an acid bath and recoat them in a new, more popular color.
Mr. Karnavat emphasizes the importance of disclosure for all treatments, especially coatings. In his words, “We scare people before we sell it.”
Mr. Karnavat’s company also has a line of jewelry set with their color-enhanced diamonds. It’s only 5-10% of their business, but it helps with sales of the loose stones by showing them set in jewelry. As he shows some examples, he explains how they carefully coordinate the colors of the metal with the enhanced diamond colors.
Mr. Karnavat tells us that public acceptance of colored diamonds has increased greatly since the early days, along with acceptance of technology in general. Treatments are the future, he says: Naturally colored diamonds aren’t getting any less expensive. Even more important, the supply is not there—especially of natural pinks—even if the customer has the money.
Mr. Karnavat deals in color-enhanced diamonds. He works with irradiated diamonds, high pressure high temperature treated diamonds, and coated diamonds. In his interviews, Mr. Karnavat provides in-depth information on each treatment process, the types of diamonds treated, the resulting colors created, and the market for enhanced diamonds.
