Bamboo jade bracelet: segments cut as stalk nodes, narrowed at the middle and swollen at the ends, threaded end to end on a double elastic.
Bamboo is one of the three friends of winter, with pine and plum: it bends under snow and straightens again. Its nodes mark the stages of a progression, and that is what the design takes up.
The central groove is the thinnest place, so the one where the light passes through most: against the light it lights up. Treatment status undetermined.Why I write it down.
A bamboo jade bracelet: stone segments cut in the shape of stalk nodes, narrowed at the middle and swollen at the ends, threaded end to end on a double elastic. It is the only model in the section whose shape tells a story, and bamboo is not a motif chosen at random in China.
In four lines
Segments cut as bamboo nodes, narrowed at the middle.
A tender, translucent green, even from one segment to the next.
Threaded end to end on two elastics: the ring stays flat and does not twist.
Taken at the wrist, it goes on by stretching.
Bamboo, and why that motif
Bamboo is one of the three friends of winter, with pine and plum: three plants that hold when the others give way, and that have served for centuries as images of constancy in Chinese painting and poetry. Bamboo bends under snow and straightens again, it is hollow so it also figures humility, and its nodes mark the stages of a progression.
It is that last point which explains the design: the stalk is read node after node, and a bracelet that chains segments takes up that reading. It is readily given at a passage, studies, a new post, a departure.
I report it because the question comes up and a page that does not answer leaves the customer to look elsewhere. As everywhere on this site, I claim no effect for this piece.
A shape that is difficult to cut
A bamboo segment is not a cylinder. It is narrowed at its middle and swollen at both ends, with a marked edge where the stalk knots. That central groove is exactly where a brittle stone splits, because the material is thinnest there and the shape concentrates the stresses.
Jade stands it because it is tough: its interlocked crystals resist the spread of a crack, which is a quite different property from hardness. It is what allowed polished axes to be made in the Neolithic, and it is what permits a groove and two swellings here on a piece a few centimetres long. The difference between hardness and toughness.
In use the shape has an unexpected advantage: the swellings touch and the grooves stay free, which makes the row more supple than a bracelet of flat slabs.
What you can check yourself
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.
Then look at the groove of each segment. It is the thinnest place on the piece, so the one where the light passes through most: on a translucent stone the groove lights up clearly against the light. On a resin or a coloured glass it does not stand out from the rest.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to bamboo 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.
The three friends of winterBamboo, pine and plum form a constant trio in scholarly painting: three plants that hold when the others give way. It is an image of constancy, documented since the Song dynasty. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
Hollow, therefore humbleThe bamboo stalk is empty, and the texts draw from it an image of modesty: full of yourself, you do not bend, and you break. The reading is old and comes back constantly in poetry.
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.
Giving jadeJade is a gift for a passage more than for a celebration: a birth, a coming of age, a departure. A bracelet that asks for no measurement lends itself to that use, where a bangle requires you to know the other person's hand.
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.
