Our Diamonds & Stones
We Always Choose Fully Traceable, Conflict-free Stones In Our Jewelry.

Lab-Grown Diamonds

Black and Salt & Pepper Earth Diamonds

Semiprecious & Precious Gemstones
Why? These diamonds are 100% unique. They’re also beautiful. They also buck the industry-created demand for high ratings on the “4 Cs.” The 4 Cs system, after all, was invented by the diamond industry to support diamond valuation. The more “pure” and large the stone, the more expensive it is. And this system is often used by traditional jewelry stores to talk you into buying a more expensive stone without an obvious or meaningful difference in appearance to anyone without a jeweler’s loupe between their eye and your stone. Inclusions are what the industry has said makes a stone less valuable, but at Betsy & Iya, we celebrate these unique and beautiful stones.
In fact, we don’t always find white diamonds as beautiful as diamonds with inclusions. We believe the beauty of our earth is in its variety, in the surprises that result from different circumstances. What’s more beautiful? The purity of the sun at noon on a cloudless day or the rich variety of colors and textures of the sun as it’s setting amidst clouds, breezes, and flocks of birds, over untamed waters, each wave and ripple glinting back a multitude of sparkles and colors. That’s not to say we don’t find white diamonds beautiful. We do. And we find included diamonds beautiful. And we will never try to upsell you because of a rating that primarily exists on paper or shame you for finding beauty in a stone that doesn’t come with a high 4C marks. If you think it’s beautiful, it is. Plus, you’ll be able to choose your favorite salt & pepper stone from our inventory if you’d like to.
Finally, the “lower value” of salt & pepper diamonds means fewer incentives for ethically questionable business practices all the way up and down the supply chain, from mine to market.
Read more about our commitment to an ethical supply chain.

Our Metals
All of our fine jewelry metals are recycled and our gold alloys are SCS certified recycled. Our fashion jewelry metals all come from US-based suppliers.
We don't love rhodium plating for a few reasons. First, the waste created by the plating process isn't great for the environment. Secondly, plating- no matter how thick- wears with time. That bright, white finish will need to be reapplied every 1-2 years, which adds ongoing cost, items on your to-do list, and creates additional environmental impact. But the biggest reason we use palladium white gold is because we just like the way it looks better than rhodium plating.
Our Production Studio
We make our line of jewelry right here in Portland, just next to our brick & mortar.

Designed, tested, and crafted by humans who care right here in our Portland studio.
FAQ
We repurpose damaged diamonds and other stones for use in different settings (like inlay) or sell them to companies who will recut or reprocess them into industrial grade diamond bits (for saw blades, etc).
Finally, we run Recast, where we’ll buy back your used Betsy & Iya jewelry, clean it up, fix it, and resell it at a discount.

An Ethical Supply Chain
We really kick the tires when we vet our suppliers, looking for companies – both big and small – who think and operate like we do.
Sourcing & Materials FAQ
1) Certification by one or more of the jewelry and/or manufacturing organizations who set standards, audit, and certify companies for ethical, environmentally conscious & sustainable, socially responsible, conflict-free, fair labor, and human rights-centered business practices (Responsible Jewellery Council, SCS Global Services, and/or Fair Trade Gems). This is often only feasible for the larger, national suppliers we work with.
2) In other cases, this means choosing local or regional options and prioritizing doing business with small family-owned companies where we often work directly with the owners, come to know them on a personal level, and can see with our own eyes that they care about the type of business they run, its impact on the world, and doing right by their employees and customers.
At least 92% of our spending on jewelry materials comes from these two types of companies – 78% from larger certified companies (1) and 14% from smaller, local or family-owned operations. Of the remaining 7.45% of materials spending, a significant chunk is with companies whom we don’t order from often enough (less than $1000 per year) to classify confidently into group (1) or (2), but who may in fact qualify.
We work hard to buy non-jewelry materials (like office supplies, consumables, shipping supplies, etc) first from local or regional suppliers, then from US-based suppliers, and from Amazon only as a last resort. We value people above profits and expect the same from our vendors, suppliers, and partners.
For fine jewelry, if you are shopping in person, you may be able to select your stone depending on inventory, but it is not a guarantee as this is highly dependent on our supply chain and what is in stock at the time.
For fashion jewelry, you may select your stone from the current finished inventory. We do not re-set stones.
If you would like us to use stones you already own or if you’d like to pick your own white or black diamond stone, we absolutely offer these services with our custom jewelry process.
Even still, we take sourcing very seriously for all earth mined stones we use, both precious and semi-precious. Read more about our Ethical Supply chain.
Why? These diamonds are 100% unique. They’re also beautiful. They also buck the industry-created demand for high ratings on the “4 Cs.” The 4 Cs system, after all, was invented by the diamond industry to support diamond valuation. The more “pure” and large the stone, the more expensive it is. And this system is often used by traditional jewelry stores to talk you into buying a more expensive stone without an obvious or meaningful difference in appearance to anyone without a jeweler’s loupe between their eye and your stone. Inclusions are what the industry has said makes a stone less valuable, but at Betsy & Iya, we celebrate these unique and beautiful stones.
In fact, we don’t always find white diamonds as beautiful as diamonds with inclusions. We believe the beauty of our earth is in its variety, in the surprises that result from different circumstances. What’s more beautiful? The purity of the sun at noon on a cloudless day or the rich variety of colors and textures of the sun as it’s setting amidst clouds, breezes, and flocks of birds, over untamed waters, each wave and ripple glinting back a multitude of sparkles and colors. That’s not to say we don’t find white diamonds beautiful. We do. And we find included diamonds beautiful. And we will never try to upsell you because of a rating that primarily exists on paper or shame you for finding beauty in a stone that doesn’t come with a high 4C marks. If you think it’s beautiful, it is. Plus, you’ll be able to choose your favorite salt & pepper stone from our inventory if you’d like to.
Finally, the “lower value” of salt & pepper diamonds means fewer incentives for ethically questionable business practices all the way up and down the supply chain, from mine to market.
Read more about our commitment to an ethical supply chain.
If the green is on your jewelry, it can be removed with an at-home cleaning method.
We repurpose damaged diamonds and other stones for use in different settings (like inlay) or sell them to companies who will recut or reprocess them into industrial grade diamond bits (for saw blades, etc).
Finally, we run Recast, where we’ll buy back your used Betsy & Iya jewelry, clean it up, fix it, and resell it at a discount.
If you’re looking for a complete custom experience–exciting!–head over to our Custom Jewelry Design page for more details and to set up a meeting.
We don't love rhodium plating for a few reasons. First, the waste created by the plating process isn't great for the environment. Secondly, plating- no matter how thick- wears with time. That bright, white finish will need to be reapplied every 1-2 years, which adds ongoing cost, items on your to-do list, and creates additional environmental impact. But the biggest reason we use palladium white gold is because we just like the way it looks better than rhodium plating.