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.
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.
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.
