Chicago ? Now you can be brilliant and flawless forever.

But you have to be cremated first.

A company based in suburban Elk Grove Village, Ill., has accepted its first deposit for manufactured diamonds made from carbon captured during the cremation process so that loved ones family members or even pets could be mounted into a ring, pendant or other jewelry.

A small number of U.S. funeral homes have signed up to offer memorial diamonds produced by Life Gem. The cost will depend on the size of the gem, starting at $4,000 for a quarter-carat.

Already, a Joliet, Ill., man who is seriously ill with emphysema says his family plans to place an order when the time comes. Jack French said he doesn’t want to be Life Gem’s first customer, but that he would like his remains fashioned into diamonds so that his wife and five children will have something far more intimate to pass down than his few personal possessions.

Greg Herro, chief executive officer of the company, acknowledges that some people will consider Life Gems a “pretty wacky idea.” But, he says, “that’s exactly the way revolutionary innovation often happens.”

Herro says his company hopes the increasing number of U.S. cremations will provide a growing market for the product. The Cremation Association of North America reports that about 26 percent of the 2.3 million U.S. residents who died last year were cremated.

Life Gem officials say the process begins when technicians control oxygen levels during cremation to prevent carbon in the body from converting to carbon dioxide. The incineration is interrupted so the technician can collect the body’s carbon in the form of a dark powder. The powder is sent to a Pennsylvania company where it is heated in a vacuum at extreme temperatures to produce graphite. Only about a thimble full is needed to produce a stone, Herro said. The graphite is sent to the German lab and placed into autoclaves that simulate the intense pressure and temperature needed to create the stones.