Apple green jade bracelet: wide slabs in a frank, almost acid green, joined edge to edge on a double elastic.
A vivid green points towards jadeite, coloured by chromium, rather than nephrite, which iron makes dark. It can also come from a dyed quartzite, and the scale settles it: 2.65 is confused with nothing.
Plaques wider than the other models in the section, so a more massive and heavier bracelet. Treatment status undetermined.Why I write it down.
An apple green jade bracelet: wide slabs in a frank, almost acid green, joined edge to edge on a double elastic. It is the most assertive colour in the bracelet section, and the one on which the most questions have to be asked before buying.
In four lines
Wide slabs, wider than on the other plaque models in the section.
A frank, vivid green, sustained from one end of the row to the other.
Joined edge to edge on two elastics: the ring stays flat and does not twist.
Taken at the wrist, it goes on by stretching.
Apple green, and where that colour comes from
In jadeite, a sodium aluminium pyroxene, the frankest greens come from chromium: it is the same element that gives emerald its colour, and it produces vivid greens, sometimes almost fluorescent. In nephrite, an amphibole, the green comes from iron and always turns towards the dark and the dull.
A sustained apple green therefore points towards jadeite rather than nephrite. Points, I say: the weighing alone will establish the species, and the two density intervals are far apart, 3.25 at least against 2.90 to 3.03. What separates the two minerals.
The other hypothesis must be stated too, and it is a frequent one: a vivid and perfectly even green is exactly what a dyed quartzite produces, sold under the name of Malaysia jade. There again the scale settles it, because 2.65 is confused with nothing.
Wide slabs, and what they weigh
The plaques of this model are appreciably wider than those of the other bracelets in the same format. Fewer are needed to go round, and each one takes up more of the wrist: the effect is more massive, less jewel and more object.
It is also heavier. A bracelet of wide stone slabs has a real weight you feel at the end of a day, especially if you work at a keyboard. That is not a defect, it is a fact: some look for it, others prefer a row of fine beads.
As on all the plaque models, the slabs are drilled with two holes and threaded on two parallel elastics. The ring stays flat and does not pivot.
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: on a green this vivid, that network is spotted against the light without a loupe.
Then look at whether the slabs are all exactly the same green. On a stone they should not be. Perfect regularity over a dozen pieces is the simplest sign of colouring. The checks that need no equipment.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to vivid green
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 green of the emperorsThe frank, sustained green is the one the imperial courts sought from the eighteenth century, when jadeite arrived from Burma. Before it, the jade of China was nephrite, and it was dark or white. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
Wearing a colour that showsA vivid green has never been a colour of discretion, and scholarly texts prefer the dull tones to it. It is a quarrel of taste that runs through centuries and is not settled.
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 polish, and what is read in itThe scholarly tradition associates jade with a soft rather than a sharp gloss, and makes of it an image of restraint. It is an aesthetic reading turned moral, not an observation about the stone.
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.
