Pixiu jade bracelet: a row of beads in a deep green, interrupted by a pixiu carved in pale stone and by an engraved gilt tag.
Custom has it worn on the left wrist, the muzzle turned outward. It is a custom, constant from one dealer to the next, and I claim no effect for it.
Strung on elastic, it is taken at the wrist. The gold tone is a plating on an unspecified alloy, and the treatment status of the stone stays undetermined. Why I write it down.
A pixiu jade bracelet: a row of beads in a deep green, interrupted by a small pixiu carved from a pale stone and by an engraved gilt tag. It is the piece most loaded with meaning in the bracelet section, and the one worn according to a precise rule.
In four lines
A pixiu carved in pale stone, in the middle of a row of green beads.
An engraved gilt tag hangs below the thread, plating on an alloy.
Custom has it worn on the left, with the muzzle turned outward.
Strung on elastic: it is taken at the wrist and goes on by stretching.
The pixiu, and the rule of wearing that goes with it
The pixiu is a creature of Chinese mythology, a winged lion with a dragon’s head, recognised by one peculiarity: it has a mouth and no anus. Tradition draws from this that it swallows without ever giving back, and it has therefore become a figure tied to wealth.
From there comes the rule of wearing, and it is the only really practical thing to know: the pixiu is worn on the left wrist, the muzzle turned towards the outside of the hand, so that it looks outward and brings back towards you. The custom is constant from one dealer to the next, and it belongs to custom, nothing else.
I report it because the question comes up every time and a page that does not answer leaves the customer to look elsewhere. I claim no effect for it, and this bracelet is not sold as a lucky charm.
Two stones of different colours
The pixiu is carved from a stone clearly paler than the beads, a slightly yellow cream white. The beads are a deep and somewhat dark green. These are two tints, and the page does not pretend they come from the same block.
The beads are not all the same green, and that is the opposite of a warning sign: a rigorously uniform row is what a dye produces, not a rock.
The thing to do is to look at the drill hole. On a dyed stone the colourant concentrates there and the rim is darker than the rest. The colour also follows the micro cracks, in a network, instead of spreading through the mass. The checks that need no equipment.
The gilt tag, and what I do not know about it
It hangs below the thread, engraved with a character, and it is gold tone: plated on an alloy my supplier does not specify. It is neither gold nor vermeil, and I am not going to write it otherwise. On a bracelet, it is the underside of the wrist that marks first.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the pixiu and to jade
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. Nothing here is demonstrated. These are customs and beliefs, which I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
A mouth and no way outThe pixiu is described as swallowing without ever giving back, and it is from that imaginary anatomy that its association with wealth comes. The story is old and constant; it commits nothing beyond itself. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
A stone of moral virtueIn 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.
The jade you patinate by handA row of beads worn every day ends by taking a polish the workshop does not give. Tradition sees in it an exchange between the stone and its wearer; it is mostly friction, and it is quite real.
The muzzle turned outwardCustom has it worn on the left wrist, the head turned towards the outside of the hand. It is the only rule of wearing that is really constant from one dealer to the next, and it belongs to custom.
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.
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.
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.
