Everything I learned while researching
The jade blog
Understanding what the word covers, spotting a real stone before you pay, caring for a piece of jewellery without damaging it, and reading what jade meant to the people who carved it before us.
Where to start
If you only read one page, read the one that explains that jade is two stones and a single word. Everything else follows from it, scams included: a name that covers two minerals is a name you can hide anything behind.
If you are about to buy, start instead with how to recognise real jade and the list of labels that do not mean jade. Twenty minutes of reading before a purchase beats a disappointment.
A writing rule that applies across the whole blog. Mineralogy is stated as fact and sourced; symbolism is written as belief and attributed to the people who hold it. The two never share a paragraph. Why this separation matters.
Understanding jade
What the word covers, where the material comes from, why it is so hard to break, and what explains its colours. This is the foundation section: mineralogy, deposits, formation, vocabulary.
Jade in Japan: Itoigawa, the magatama and the national stone- Jade in French museums: Guimet, Cernuschi, Carnac
- The jade glossary in fifteen words
How jade stone forms
Why jade almost never breaks
Jade in Europe: Damour, Monte Viso, Carnac- Where jade comes from: Guatemala, Pounamu, Taiwan, Russia, Canada
- Green jade stone, from spinach green to bright green
- White jade stone: mutton fat nephrite or quartzite
- Jadeite or nephrite: two unrelated minerals
- Jade stone colours: green, white, yellow, black
- Jade stone: two minerals under one name
Spotting and buying
The largest section, and that is no accident: jade is one of the most imitated stones on the market. False names, treatments, prices, origins, and what to look for before you pay.
- Jade and the 2002 French decree: what a seller must say
- The jade anniversary: 26 years in France, 35 elsewhere
- Dyed jade: recognizing an added colour
- Buying jade jewellery: where, and what to watch for
- How jade is named: what the GIA and CIBJO say
- Jade necklace for a baby: why I don’t sell one
- Measuring your hand before buying a jade bangle
- What I publish on every jade page, and why
- Jade jewellery in gold or sterling silver: choosing the metal
- Judging jade quality: the six criteria
- Giving jade jewellery: which piece, which size
- Women’s jade jewellery
- Men’s jade jewellery
- Imperial jade bracelet: what the term really means
- Jade roller and gua sha: what they are made of
- Real jade bracelet price: what a jade piece costs
- Pink, blue, red and yellow jade: what the names cover
- Serpentine, quartzite, aventurine: the stones sold as jade
- Vietnamese jade jewellery: what the market sells under the name
- Burmese jade bracelet: why it will not be sold here
- How to tell if jade is real: what you can check at home
- Jade A, B and C: the only classification that exists
- Is jade a precious stone?
- Jade stone price: what makes a hundredfold gap
Symbolism and traditions
What jade represented in China, in Mesoamerica, among the Māori, and in Neolithic Europe. History and anthropology, reported and dated, never presented as effects of the stone.
- The He disc: the most famous jade story
- The moral virtues of jade in Chinese thought
- Maori Pounamu: the jade I don’t imitate
- Jade in Chinese tombs: the burial suit of Liu Sheng
- Jade motifs: dragon, turtle, elephant and Bi disc
- The jade mala: what a string of beads really counts
- A jade bracelet that breaks
- Jade Buddha pendant meaning: who the figure really is
- Jade for good luck: where the idea comes from
- Jade bracelet meaning: what tradition puts on the wrist
- Chinese jade jewellery: the subject, not the label
- Jade stone meaning: what tradition attributes to it
- Jade symbolism: China, Mesoamerica and the Spanish Ijada
Jade care
How to clean, how to store, what causes damage, and what you must never do when you do not know whether a stone has been impregnated with resin. The shortest section, and the most useful one after you buy.
What this blog will never do
It will not tell you that a stone heals, will not sell you “AAA jade”, and will not use the term “semi-precious”, which French Decree No. 2002-65 prohibits across its entire scope. When I do not know, I say so: that is the case for the treatment status of my own pieces, and I wrote a whole page to explain it.
The grids on this page are filled from the published articles: each new article appears here as soon as the page is republished.
Published on 9 September 2026.