Where To Buy Lab Grown Diamonds In Portland: The Ultimate Guide

It is no secret that Portland, Oregon is a special place. While some insist it was built upon an ancient burial ground for unicorns, there is no question that it’s magical.

And in this great city, you’ll find some of the best shopping in the nation. So when it comes time to buy fine jewelry with Lab Grown Diamonds, we wanted to help out our fellow locals—and welcomed visitors from afar!—with this no-nonsense guide.

You might have started to hear about Lab Grown Diamonds for engagement rings and other gifts popping up everywhere around Portland. The following is a list of tough questions and honest answers that any true Portland local might ask.

Most fine jewelry stores still hold onto the out-dated viewpoint of the diamond industry. You often see overly aggressive, commission-based sales associates using high-pressure sales tactics to talk you into spending 3 to 4 months salary on a diamond engagement ring. That’s fine for many, but it’s not a rule.

If you have an abundance of expendable wealth, then knock yourself out! But let's be real, most of us don’t. You should not be made to feel less of a person for not spending that much, and we never want a new couple to start their lives off together in debt.

MiaDonna is the only lab-grown diamond company in Portland that does not offer staff financial incentives to sell jewelry.

This means we are truly your advocate, the way it should be. We pride ourselves on being the jewelry store for this generation. Our goal is to make your engagement ring shopping fun and relaxing, while empowering you with the correct knowledge to get your dream ring—on budget and on time.  Our non-commission Lab Grown Diamond and jewelry experts are standing by to be your advocate in finding the best quality Lab Grown Diamond and fine jewelry at the best price. We are here to serve you.

Not all Lab-grown diamonds are equal. Like earth-mined diamonds there are many varying degrees of quality and ethics. MiaDonna only sells luxury Lab Grown Diamonds that are harder and brighter than most other diamonds on the market. We specialize in only the best American grown, Type II-a Diamonds that are not post-treated.

The bonus is that our Lab Grown Diamonds are still 40% less than earth-mined diamonds, giving you more bang for your buck. Customers are always excited that they get a bigger and better diamond.

For many jewelry stores in the Portland area, Lab Created Diamonds are a newer topic for them. For over a decade, the biggest jewelry companies in the world tried to discredit these wonderful gemstones as fake, artificial and going as far to say they would never sell a diamond grown in a lab.

How the tables have turned! Now that the Lab Grown Diamond market is starting to mature and consumers are recognizing the superiority of these diamonds compared to the earth-mined ones, local and national chains are changing their tune.

We have always known lab diamonds are real and identical in every way to earthed-mined diamonds except for how they originated: in a lab.

Typical diamond chain store personnel are just learning about how complicated and nuanced Lab Grown Diamonds are. It’s complicated and confusing at times. You must talk to a Lab Grown Diamond expert to get the complete picture.

MiaDonna was the world's first retailer to sell Lab Grown Diamonds and Lab Grown Gemstones exclusively, pionering the industry in 2005. Everyone at MiaDonna are true experts in everything lab-grown, because that is all we do.

Portlanders are smart consumers, and like most cities, locals have a lot of pride in companies headquartered in Portland. When it comes to buying Lab Grown Diamonds, some give a hard pass to strip-mall jewelry chain stores and companies only pretending to be locals and so-called friends in the diamond industry.

Enter MiaDonna. Not only were we founded by a single mother in 2005 in Portland Oregon, we birthed the lab-grown diamond industry from here too! Any store selling Lab Grown Diamonds in the USA has MiaDonna to thank for paving the way. (However, since all these stores are our competitors, we’ll probably never get a Thank You from them.)

“They wouldn’t let me into the boys club of the diamond industry, so I created a new industry. A greener, more sustainable one. I truly believe I would not have had the same level of success if I started this elsewhere. While the rest of the world ridiculed me for the idea of growing diamonds in a lab, Portlanders embraced the idea. I quickly gained a loyal following here and I will forever be grateful for that.” - MiaDonna Founder, Anna-Mieke Anderson

We serve the world over with a robust e-commerce site. However, our physical store is located in the greater-Portland area, just across the street from the Washington Square Mall.

But forget about diamonds for a second.

Why are local stores so important? They improve the local economy and provide jobs for residents. Furthermore, 70 cents of every dollar spent at a local business stays in the community! For national corporations, only 40 cents or less stays local. When you choose to buy locally, you’re also supporting your neighbors.

Lots of faceless corporations try to show Portland love, but they do so in a generic way. “Go our team! (Whoever they are . . . now buy some stuff).” Most people can see right through this. However, the most creative and genuine brands offer something more meaningful to their customers.

For example, most locals know the main streets of Portland such as Burnside, Lovejoy, Irving, Stark, Hoyt, Morrison, and Terwilliger. MiaDonna is so proud of Portland, all of our Two-Tone rings are named after these iconic Portland streets. It doesn’t get more local than that!

And what’s more exciting is that for some couples, they have fond memories together from a venue on these streets. Now you can buy an engagement ring that helps tie your local love story all together.

Even for locals, it’s hard to sum up Portland’s unique culture. It’s more than our outstanding food, drink, and arts. It goes beyond our love of startups and artisan crafts.

Most Portlanders love nature and its preservation thereof. Our schools and colleges are vocal advocates for sustainability. We still rank in the top 10 in the nation for LEED leadership. But the environment is only part of it.

Socially, where Portland lacks in ethnic diversity we make up for in gender diversity. We’re the third most LGBTQ-friendly city in the nation. We also attract people from all walks of life to become a part of our little community—which in turn helps us recruit more Trailblazers, Thorns, and Timbers fans.

So it makes sense that sometimes locals look for a strong cultural fit with whom they decide to do business with. At MiaDonna, we not only care about the triple bottom line (the environment, society, and economy), we were founded on it.

We’re the Rebels,

the visionaries,

the ones putting a modern twist on an outdated diamond industry.

We believe in creating traditions, not following them.

We believe in equality, inclusion, and that love is for all.

We believe children belong in schools, and not digging mines.

We believe in preserving the earth for future generations.

- MiaDonna Manifesto

Portlanders recognize the importance of being a global citizen and we are often activists for equity around the world: especially when it comes to measuring social impact in the products that we purchase.

MiaDonna is a social enterprise and we exist to give back. The main thing these other companies are missing is the giving back part. At least 10% of our net profits is used to support impoverished diamond mining communities around the world to live a life free of the poverty cycle of mining. Through our foundation, your purchase can literally change the world.

It’s kind of hard to tell if a Google or Yelp review is real. Who knows if the review is actually written by a competitor or someone that works for the company? Word of mouth is a strong vote of confidence, but it’s not exactly objective.

These days, companies throw around words like sustainable, ethical, and transparency like confetti. You should not accept a brand’s social and environmental claims at face value. Like love is a verb not a noun, a similar insight applies to these new corporate buzzwords. Companies must take action and public steps to prove their commitment.

In 2019, MiaDonna’s commitment to sustainability was validated by becoming certified through the rigorous B Corporation process. We’re the first diamond retailer in the USA to achieve this status. So in a sea of greenwashed jewelry companies that became charitable and transparent as a reaction to the trending business ethos, we built a company for the greater good from day one. Some call it a social enterprise. We just call it good business.

Fun fact: As of March 2021, less than 10% of companies applying for B Corp certification were actually approved.

Blood Diamonds are still a real issue in today's society and now we are seeing conflict Lab Grown Diamonds hitting the market. Uneducated retailers are sourcing lab-grown diamonds from manufacturers who inflate profits at the cost of quality, the environment, and humanity just to make a quick buck.

MiaDonna's lab grown diamonds are ethically sourced from American labs using the most sustainable growing methods and backed by third-party certifications.

The ugly thing about the earth-mined diamond industry is that when you start to uncover the supply chain, labor relations, and bogus accountability programs (such as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme), you begin to see how corrupt it really is.

You have the right to know where our products come from and how workers were treated in the process.

Supporting worldwide charities is great, but what do companies do about organizations in their own backyard? The research will show that national jewelry chains do very little about local charities. They have a bottom line, thin margins, a board and shareholders to answer to.

That’s not the story with us. MiaDonna’s entire staff chooses one local charity a quarter to support. We are honored to have worked with local organizations like Rose Haven, Transition Projects, and the Children’s Book Bank.

Every great local company has a great Portland story. Most of us can relate to stories from local brands like Stumptown Coffee, Powell’s Books, Dave’s Killer Bread, Salt & Straw, Little Big Burger, and Sock It To Me, to name a few. And who can forget brand stories from local industry giants like Nike, Tektronix, and Columbia Sportswear?

MiaDonna also has an exciting, but very authentic story. Our story in the Portland community dates back to 2005. It began with an activist who wanted to find an alternative to earth-mined diamonds and all the destruction it brings. Our founder, Anna-Mieke’s solution was to offer consumers conflict-free fine jewelry to sponsor more children and their mothers. And we’ve never lost sight of our mission. As it turned out, many other people cared about our cause and they were also searching for conflict-free fine jewelry.

But perhaps the greatest story is your own: your love story. That is why we created the #MiaDonnaHeroes program. We wanted to highlight couples who supported our mission. It's only because of conscious consumers purchasing conflict-free fine jewelry at MiaDonna that we are able to empower people in mining communities to thrive in a life outside of diamond and gold mining industries.

When you run down this list of things to look for when it comes to buying Lab Grown Diamonds in the Portland area, we think the choice is obvious. Browse online and then book an appointment to visit us. From there, just sit back with a complimentary beer or glass of wine and let us do the work!