Carved white jade bracelet: pale slabs worked in relief across their whole face, joined edge to edge on a double elastic.
Sold subject to weighing. On a white, dolomitic marble reaches 2.85 and nephrite starts at 2.90. If the figure falls below, the word jade leaves the title.
On a translucent stone the bottom of a hollow is brighter than its rim, because the material is thinner there. An opaque casting does the opposite. The checks to make.
A carved white jade bracelet: pale slabs worked in relief across their whole face, joined edge to edge on a double elastic. It is the only engraved white in the section, and it combines the two difficulties of the catalogue, that of the colour and that of the relief.
In four lines
Slabs of a milky white, worked in relief across their whole face.
Sold subject to weighing: white is the most imitated colour.
Joined edge to edge on two elastics: the ring stays flat and does not twist.
Taken at the wrist, it goes on by stretching.
Why white is the hardest case
On a green the weighing separates widely: a jade at 2.90 at least against a serpentine or a quartzite around 2.6. On a white the intervals brush against each other. Dolomitic marble reaches 2.85, nephrite starts at 2.90, and five hundredths separate the two.
The reason is simple: a stone is not dyed white. The imitations of white jade are therefore not coloured stones but pale stones that are naturally so, marble and quartzite foremost, and those happen to fall in the neighbouring density range.
Examining the drill hole, which is the basic gesture on a dyed stone, is therefore of no use here: there is no colourant to concentrate. That is why this reference is sold under condition.
What the relief adds, and what it reveals
On a pale stone a hollowed motif is read not by contrast but by shadow: the bottom of the hollow holds a little grey, the edges stay bright, and the drawing appears pale on pale. You have to turn the wrist to bring it alive.
The relief also gives a purchase that smooth stone does not. A resin casting reproduces the shape of the hollow, not the way the light travels through the material: on a translucent stone the bottom of a hollow is brighter than its rim, because the material is thinner there. An opaque casting does exactly the opposite.
And it is again the toughness of jade that permits this work: hollowing out a slab a few millimetres thick without splitting it is possible on very few stones. The difference between hardness and toughness.
A white that is worn, and that gets dirty
It is a pale piece laid flat against the skin, and a relief holds more than a smooth surface. Sebum, creams and perfumes lodge in the hollows and dull the polish there faster than on a bare slab.
It is cleaned in lukewarm water and dried with a soft cloth, with no soap and no product, and above all with no ultrasonic bath, which can work on a cracked stone. A soft toothbrush is enough for the hollows.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to white 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.
Mutton fat whiteThe old texts give that name to the most sought after white, for its greasy look rather than for its whiteness. It is a description of the surface, and it remains the best word for that polish. 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 first rank of the coloursThe old rankings place white jade ahead of green and associate it with purity of character. It is a hierarchy of cultivated taste, which says nothing about the mineral quality of a piece.
Dispatch within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no stock in reserve, and I will not promise a date I could not meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 whatever the destination, free on orders over €47 to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount is shown in your basket before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece travels in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not a question of presentation: the hardness of jade is unremarkable, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together arrive marked.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No need to give a reason. An email is enough to open a return; there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.
Getting the size wrong is the most common reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes spent measuring almost always avoids it. The size guide.
Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That is all, and it is enough.
What You Must Never Do, and Why
No ultrasonic cleaners, no steam, no solvents, no heat source. This is not a precaution for show: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier does not know it, and weighing identifies the mineral without telling me anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands 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 difficult to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it usable for axe heads in the Neolithic. Its hardness, by contrast, is unremarkable, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7: that is what dulls a 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 knocks against hard edges are common. 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. French, from Morbihan, living in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them mounted: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and the metalwork is not done by my hand. What I bring is the selection, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am not a gemmologist, not a lapidary, not a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not Certify
Before a listing goes online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unmounted, 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 listing, and not every piece. I do not handle the piece that is sent to you, and I would rather write that down than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier does not know it, and the scales do not tell me: they identify the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I do not have that done. So you will never read “Grade A jadeite”, “Type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
Where My Jade Comes From
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is legal. Not the one you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did 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 company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but a US person is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. A single supply chain serves ten markets, so it has to hold up in the most demanding of them. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin charter.
