Green jadeite bangle, carved from a single piece

84,90 €

Green jadeite bangle, carved from a single piece, with no hinge and no clasp. A clear green, the one chromium gives jadeite, on a solid polished ring.

It is sized by inner diameter, not wrist size: it has to pass your closed hand, thumb tucked in. Measure before you order, it does not open and cannot be resized.

Mineral named, jadeite. Treatment status undetermined: my supplier cannot tell me, and my scale does not say. Why I write it down.

How to measure your size: the guide, family by family

A tape measure right at the wrist bone, laid on without pulling tight.

Category:

A green jadeite bangle, carved from a single piece, with no hinge and no clasp. It suits anyone who wants a bracelet they put on once and never take off, and in return it asks for one accurate measurement: the inner diameter is what matters, not your wrist size.

In four lines

  • Carved from a single piece: no hinge, no clasp, no solder.
  • Sized by inner diameter, measured across your closed hand.
  • A green jadeite bangle, mineral named. Neither serpentine nor dyed quartzite under that name.
  • Treatment status undetermined, and the listing says so rather than let you assume.

It Does Not Open, So You Measure First

A bangle has neither hinge nor clasp, and it cannot be resized: jade is far too tough to be cut open and soldered back like metal. So before you look at the colour, there is one question to settle, and it is whether your hand will go through.

It is not your wrist you need to measure. Close your hand, tuck your thumb as deep into your palm as it will go, measure around the widest point, and divide by 3.14: that gives you the minimum inner diameter. Add one or two millimetres, because a bangle that only just goes on will go on once, cold, and will not go back on during a heat wave. Once in place it sits snug and barely turns; if it turns a lot, it is too big and it will knock against tables. The method in detail, and the size guide.

Jadeite, and What That Word Changes

This piece is jadeite, a sodium-aluminum pyroxene. It is one of the two minerals the word jade covers, the other being nephrite, an amphibole. A Frenchman separated them: in 1863, Alexis Damour established that they are two unrelated species, and coined the name jadeite. Its clear green comes from chromium, where nephrite’s comes from iron and pulls toward spinach. What sets them apart.

And what lets jade hold together as a thin ring is not its hardness, it is its toughness: a structure of interlocking crystals that resists a crack spreading. It is the same property that made polished stone axes possible in the Neolithic. The difference between hardness and toughness, and why it explains everything else.

Why I Write Green Jadeite Bangle, and Not Just Jade

Because the word jade on its own does not say much. What is sold under that name is very often serpentine, labelled “new jade” or “Korean jade”, or dyed quartzite, sold as “Malaysia jade”. None of those names describes jade.

The difference is physical, and it can be measured. The four reference figures in the record are separated by far more than the margin of error of a kitchen scale, and that is what allows the word real on this site. It sets true jade against serpentine, and nothing else: never untreated against treated.

Additional information

StoneJadéite
ColourClear green
Stone shapeSolid bangle
MotifNo motif
MountingRigid bangle
MetalNone
SettingNo setting
Worn byUnisex
Mineral familySodium aluminium pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)6.5 to 7
Reference density3.25 to 3.36 g/cm³
ToughnessExceptional, interlocking crystals
TreatmentNot determined
OriginOutside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed

What Tradition Attaches to the Jade Bangle

What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blend it into the rest of the listing. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of this stone's history. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.

The left wrist Several Chinese traditions link wearing the bangle on the left wrist to the idea of receiving rather than giving. The custom is widespread; no basis for it is known beyond the custom itself.
Never taking it off A bangle goes on once and stays on, sometimes for a lifetime. The closed shape has much to do with it: this is not a piece of jewellery you choose in the morning, it is an object you wear.
The bangle that breaks Tradition holds that a broken bangle took the blow in place of the person wearing it. It is a reading made after the fact, and what it really says is how much attachment goes into a piece worn for a long time.
A stone of moral virtue In Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than effects on the body: uprightness, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of them all.

These readings are told, not verified. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet, moral virtue in Confucius, and the virtues attributed to jade, honestly stated.

A stone does not replace a doctor and treats nothing: the full disclaimer is here.

Delivery times

Dispatched within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no buffer stock, and I won’t promise a timeframe I couldn’t meet.

Postage charges

€6.99 to any destination, free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount appears in the cart before you pay.

The packaging, and why it matters

Every piece ships in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This isn’t about presentation: the hardness of jade is ordinary, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together end up scratching each other.

Fourteen days to change your mind

With no need to explain yourself. An email is enough to open a return, there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece doesn’t match its listing or arrives damaged.

The wrong size is the main reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes of measuring almost always prevents it. The size guide.

It is all set out here, with no fine print.

The simple routine

Warm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That’s all, and it’s enough.

What you must never do, and why

No ultrasonic cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. This isn’t a token precaution: the treatment status of my pieces is not established. My supplier doesn’t know, and weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin tolerates neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The information sheet on treatments.

Scratches, and where they come from

Jade is tough, meaning very hard to break: its interlocking crystal structure resists fracturing, and that is why axes could be shaped from it in the Neolithic. Its hardness, on the other hand, is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in everyday dust sits at 7: that is what dulls jade, not knocks. The difference between the two.

Day to day

Put the piece on after perfume and cream, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening and sport, where the knocks against corners happen. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.

Cleaning jade jewellery and storing it.

What I do, and what I don’t

My name is Jade. I’m French, from Morbihan, and based in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and I don’t do the metalwork myself. The work I do is the sorting, and with this material that is what decides everything.

I am neither a gemmologist, nor a lapidary, nor a therapist, and I don’t claim to be.

I weigh, I don’t certify

Before putting a reference online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unset, I weigh it in air, then suspended from a thread in a glass of water: the ratio of the two masses gives the density, and that figure separates jadeite, nephrite, serpentine and dyed quartzite without ambiguity.

One example per reference, not every piece. I don’t handle the piece that goes out to you, and I would rather say so than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.

What I can’t know

The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier doesn’t know, and the scales say nothing about it: they establish the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I don’t have that done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.

Where my jade comes from

No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is a legal one. Not the reason you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did indeed ban these stones in the United States, but that ban was lifted on 7 October 2016. What applies today dates from 8 April 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no general ban, but an American is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has passed through. One single supply chain for ten markets: it has to hold up for the most demanding of them. When an origin isn’t confirmed to me in writing, the listing doesn’t state it. My sourcing policy.

The whole story.