White jade and gold ring: a solid band cut from a single piece, in a very pale pinkish white, with a small gold tone flower set with a green stone.
The most discreet piece in the ring section, and the easiest to wear every day. A stone ring cannot be resized: it has to be right first time.
The stone of the flower is not announced by my supplier, and I do not call it jade merely because it is green. The gold tone is a plating on an unspecified alloy.
A white jade and gold ring: a solid band cut from a single piece, in a very pale white that leans slightly towards pink, with a small gold tone flower set with a green stone. It is the most discreet piece in the ring section, and the easiest to wear every day.
In four lines
A solid band, cut from one block, in a very pale pinkish white.
A small gold tone flower, set with a green stone, laid flat.
It cannot be resized: a stone ring does not adjust.
The gold tone is a plating on an unspecified alloy.
The pinkish white, and what it may be
The colour is not a frank white. It leans towards pale pink, almost towards beige depending on the light, and it is a shade found in nephrite as in several of its imitations.
Pink in jade, where it exists, comes from iron inclusions in very small quantity. But it is also the natural tint of many quartzites and marbles, and that is what makes this reference hard to judge by eye: there is no saturated colour to examine, no colourant to look for around a drill hole.
The weighing remains the only judge, and on a white it is less decisive than elsewhere: dolomitic marble reaches 2.85, nephrite starts at 2.90. Five hundredths separate the two. The checks that need no equipment.
A ring that cannot be adjusted
The ring is not a metal shank carrying a stone: the stone is the band, cut and drilled in one piece. Jade allows that because it is tough, which is a different property from hardness. The difference between the two.
The consequence is practical: a stone ring cannot be resized. No filing, no tightening, no stretching. It has to be right first time, and that is why the size guide counts for more here than on a metal mount. The size guide.
Remember too that fingers swell with heat and at the end of the day. On a ring that does not open, half a size too large is easier to live with than half a size too small.
The flower, and what I do not know about it
It is small, laid flat on the band, and set with a green stone whose species my supplier does not specify. I am not going to call it jade merely because it is green: it is flagged in the record as not announced, and it will stay that way until I know more.
The gold tone, for its part, is a plating on an alloy my supplier does not specify either. It is neither gold nor vermeil. On a ring, plating wears first on the inner face, where it touches the neighbouring finger.
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 whiteCultivated Chinese taste placed at the top the white nephrites of Xinjiang, called mutton fat for their dense, greasy look. The finest pieces of the imperial collections are white, not green, and they were valued above all for the quality of the material.
Giving jadeIn ancient Chinese usage, jades were given to seal an agreement or mark an alliance, between families as much as between people. The object stood for a commitment. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
The jade you patinate by handChinese usage holds that a jade worn every day becomes warmer and brighter with the years. What changes is the surface, polished by friction and by the natural oils of the skin: the effect is real, the explanation is mechanical.
White before greenThe present hierarchy, which puts green first, comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite from the eighteenth century onward. It is a matter of fashion rather than of quality, and it reversed a thousand years of preference.
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.
