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.
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.
