There’s another entrant in the apparently burgeoning field of turning dead bodies into diamonds.
However, the technique used by the new company, Memorial Gem, is completely different from that offered by Chicago’s Lifegem, which grows a synthetic diamond from the actual cremated remains.
Instead, the new technique injects the “cremains” throughout a natural diamond using an intense heat process.
“Once all the cremated remains are in the diamonds, another process covers and coats it,” says Brian Crawford, an Edmonton funeral home director who is the North American representative for the process.
The technique already has been used on a Canadian grandmother who died in 1999. The family plans to have the one-quarter-carat diamond with her remains set in a ring. Crawford says he has numerous other orders pending.
“It’s just another option for people who choose cremation,” Crawford says, comparing it to another recently developed process in which “cremains” are made part of a painting.