Carved white jade bracelet: pale slabs worked in relief across their whole face, joined edge to edge on a double elastic.
Sold subject to weighing. On a white, dolomitic marble reaches 2.85 and nephrite starts at 2.90. If the figure falls below, the word jade leaves the title.
On a translucent stone the bottom of a hollow is brighter than its rim, because the material is thinner there. An opaque casting does the opposite. The checks to make.
A carved white jade bracelet: pale slabs worked in relief across their whole face, joined edge to edge on a double elastic. It is the only engraved white in the section, and it combines the two difficulties of the catalogue, that of the colour and that of the relief.
In four lines
Slabs of a milky white, worked in relief across their whole face.
Sold subject to weighing: white is the most imitated colour.
Joined edge to edge on two elastics: the ring stays flat and does not twist.
Taken at the wrist, it goes on by stretching.
Why white is the hardest case
On a green the weighing separates widely: a jade at 2.90 at least against a serpentine or a quartzite around 2.6. On a white the intervals brush against each other. Dolomitic marble reaches 2.85, nephrite starts at 2.90, and five hundredths separate the two.
The reason is simple: a stone is not dyed white. The imitations of white jade are therefore not coloured stones but pale stones that are naturally so, marble and quartzite foremost, and those happen to fall in the neighbouring density range.
Examining the drill hole, which is the basic gesture on a dyed stone, is therefore of no use here: there is no colourant to concentrate. That is why this reference is sold under condition.
What the relief adds, and what it reveals
On a pale stone a hollowed motif is read not by contrast but by shadow: the bottom of the hollow holds a little grey, the edges stay bright, and the drawing appears pale on pale. You have to turn the wrist to bring it alive.
The relief also gives a purchase that smooth stone does not. A resin casting reproduces the shape of the hollow, not the way the light travels through the material: on a translucent stone the bottom of a hollow is brighter than its rim, because the material is thinner there. An opaque casting does exactly the opposite.
And it is again the toughness of jade that permits this work: hollowing out a slab a few millimetres thick without splitting it is possible on very few stones. The difference between hardness and toughness.
A white that is worn, and that gets dirty
It is a pale piece laid flat against the skin, and a relief holds more than a smooth surface. Sebum, creams and perfumes lodge in the hollows and dull the polish there faster than on a bare slab.
It is cleaned in lukewarm water and dried with a soft cloth, with no soap and no product, and above all with no ultrasonic bath, which can work on a cracked stone. A soft toothbrush is enough for the hollows.
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 whiteThe old texts give that name to the most sought after white, for its greasy look rather than for its whiteness. It is a description of the surface, and it remains the best word for that polish. 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.
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 first rank of the coloursThe old rankings place white jade ahead of green and associate it with purity of character. It is a hierarchy of cultivated taste, which says nothing about the mineral quality of a piece.
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.
