Bamboo jade earrings: a short segment of stalk, node included, cut from a translucent yellow green stone and laid across the lobe, flanked by two pale stones cut as marquises that figure the leaves. They are worn flat against the ear.
In four lines
A bamboo segment, node included, cut from the stone.
Two pale marquise stones on either side, like leaves.
Studs: they are worn flat against the lobe, without hanging.
The record will depend on the claws: they must lift without forcing.
A stud, and who it is the right choice for
Unlike almost all the section, this pair does not hang: the stone is laid flat against the lobe and held by a post that passes through the ear. It is a stud, and that radically changes who it suits.
It does not move, so it catches nowhere: not in a scarf, not in a roll neck, not in hair. It does not pull on the lobe either, since the weight is held against the ear instead of hanging. It is the pair you keep on to sleep or to play sport.
Its drawback is discretion: at this size and lying on the lobe, it is seen close up and not from a distance. If you want a piece that gets noticed, the drops in the section will do better. All the earrings in the section.
Bamboo, and why that motif
The segment is cut with its node, that swelling which marks the boundary between two internodes of a real stalk. It is the detail that makes the motif legible: without it, this would be a plain little bar.
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. It bends under snow and straightens again.
Its nodes, precisely, mark the stages of a progression, and that is why bamboo is readily given at a passage: studies, a new post, a departure. I report it as a custom, not as a property of the stone.
A yellow green stone, and what remains to be established
The tint is unusual in this catalogue: a translucent yellow green, closer to lime than to frank green, with a clear gradation from one end of the segment to the other. That variation follows the material, which is the behaviour of a colour of formation.
It proves nothing on its own. What is sold under the name of jade is very often serpentine, around 2.6, or dyed quartzite, around 2.65, when nephrite starts at 2.90. Only density settles it without a laboratory.
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 trio found together on screens, porcelain and jewellery. Three plants that cross the bad season, read as three ways of not giving in.
Hollow, therefore humbleThe bamboo stalk is empty inside, and scholars saw in it an image of modesty: full of nothing, so ready to receive. The comparison is classical in Tang poetry.
A node, a stageThe nodes that punctuate the stalk serve as an image for the stages of a life or a career. Hence the habit of giving bamboo at a passage, and the Chinese word for the node also says integrity.
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.
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.
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.
