Oscar nodded with approval when Three 6 Mafia (Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman, and Paul Beauregard) flaunted their multimillion-dollar trinkets during their performance at this year's Academy Awards, and all the established jewelry houses such, as Chopard, Tiffany, Cartier, and Harry Winston, made their appearance, draped on the bevy of big-screen beauties.

So how do stars cash in on the glamour? You might be surprised to know that although most celebrities can afford bo buy the jewelry they were to public events, they typically don't. Jewelry houses like the ones mentioned above (Harry Winston's name is practically synonymous with Oscar) allow stars to "borrow" the stunning items. The big hope is that one of the borrowers will turn out to be a winner. And there's also, of course, the hope that the celebrity will fall in love with the piece and buy a couple dozen for their closest friends.

But what about the rest of us who are seduced by the alluring patina of bejeweled baubles? A small group of companies in the diamond market - Gemesis, Apollo, and PARgems among them -- are producing gem-quality diamonds at astoundingly affordable prices. These jewels are acknowledged by the Gemological Institute of America, the foremost diamond research and grading body in America, because they have many of the same chemical and physical properties of natural diamonds. The PARgems website boasts a flawless one-carat, hand-cut, Russian Brilliants® simulated diamond at a fraction of the price of a mined diamond. And designers will soon be able to use lab-created stones to fashion jewelry that has traditionally been too difficult or too expensive to make using mined diamonds -- the cost-effective stones allow for more elaborate creations.

These manmade diamonds appeal to another part of the contemporary celebrity mindset: social activism. Consider Pamela Anderson (spokesperson for PETA), Angelina Jolie (UN Goodwill Ambassador), and Bono (über-humanitarian) -- it looks like having a social conscience really is sexy. Humanitarianism is hot. No children were exploited, and no lives lost, in the manufacturing of lab-created diamonds. They really are "glitter without the guilt," with no ties to the violence or diamond-related criminal activity involving with mining.

To learn more about the conflict-diamond issue -- where the financial gains from the sale of mined diamonds are used to fund civil wars in African countries like Sierra Leone - watch the documentary Bling: Consequences and Repercussions, narrated by rapper Chuck D, at http://wghfilms.com/bling.htm And in the meantime, try on some guilt-free bling for yourself!