Lavender jade ring: a solid band in a soft mauve, cut from a single piece. The only piece of that colour in the catalogue.
Lavender jadeite exists, and it is naturally pale and uneven. It is also the colour most often produced by artificial colouring on the jade market, and I cannot say which side this ring falls on.
The weighing will establish whether it is jade, it will not say whether the colour is original. A perfectly uniform mauve is not reassuring: irregularities are a good sign here.
A lavender jade ring: a solid band in a soft mauve, cut from a single piece. It is the only piece of that colour in the catalogue, and it is also the one where the question of dyeing arises most plainly, because lavender is exactly what the market colours most.
In four lines
A solid band in bare stone, in an even, soft mauve.
The only lavender piece in the catalogue.
Lavender is very often dyed, and the weighing will not say so.
It cannot be resized: a stone ring does not adjust.
Lavender really exists, and it is very often dyed
Lavender jadeite exists: it is a variety whose colour comes from traces of manganese and iron, and the finest pieces reach considerable prices. It is naturally pale and uneven, often cloudy, rarely a deep and uniform mauve.
And that is precisely why lavender is, with apple green, the colour most often produced by artificial colouring on the jade market. A quartzite dyed mauve, a middling jadeite enhanced: the process is common and it gives a clean, even result, more attractive than the unenhanced stone.
I cannot say which side this ring falls on. The weighing will establish whether it is jade, it will not say whether the colour is original. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I do not have that done. It is written on the Treatment line of every page on this site, but here the question is not theoretical.
What you can look at, and what it is worth
On a stone coloured through its mass, the tint varies from one point of the band to another, in clouds or in patches. On a dyed stone it follows the network of micro cracks and gathers in the porosity, which gives cobweb outlines visible against the light.
A perfectly uniform mauve all the way round is therefore not reassuring, it is the opposite. Irregularities are a good sign on this colour more than on any other. The checks that need no equipment.
These observations point, they prove nothing, and I am not going to claim otherwise to sell a ring.
A ring that cannot be adjusted
The stone is the band, cut and drilled in one piece, with no metal and no seam. Jade allows that because it is tough, its interlocked crystals resisting the spread of a crack. The difference between hardness and toughness.
So it cannot be resized: no filing, no tightening, no stretching. It has to be right first time, and fingers swell with heat and at the end of the day. The size guide.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to lavender 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.
A colour without a traditionLavender jadeite only reached China with the Burmese trade, from the eighteenth century, and it carries no ancient symbolism. The meanings offered for it today come from the contemporary stone market, not from the classical texts. 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, and it holds whatever the colour.
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 greenCultivated Chinese taste long placed white nephrite at the top, well above green. The present hierarchy comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite, and it is a matter of fashion rather than of quality.
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.
