Chain jade bracelet: a dark green jade tube set in the middle of a very fine gilt chain, closed by a sliding bead knot.
The most discreet in the section. It slips under a sleeve, is worn with a watch, and suits slender wrists where a bangle always looks too wide. The length is set by pulling on both strands.
The gold tone is a plating on an unspecified alloy, not gold. Species to be established by weighing, treatment status undetermined. Why I write it down.
A chain jade bracelet: a dark green jade tube set in the middle of a very fine gilt chain, closed by a sliding bead knot. It is the most discreet in the section, the one that slips under a sleeve and is worn with a watch without either getting in the way.
In four lines
A very fine chain, and one stone only: the most discreet in the section.
Closed by a sliding bead knot, so adjustable in length.
A dark green jade tube, polished plain, with no engraving.
The gold tone is a plating on an alloy, and the page says nothing else.
The piece you do not see at once
Everything else in the bracelet section is visible: massive bangles, rows of beads, braided cords. This one is the exception. The chain is so fine that it disappears at a metre, and all that is left is a dark green line laid on the skin.
It is the bracelet worn with something else: under a shirt sleeve, beside a watch, or layered with a second bracelet without the two competing for attention. It is also the one that suits a slender wrist, where a bangle always looks too wide.
The counterpart is the upkeep. A fine chain tangles if it is put down in a heap, and the sliding bead knot loosens with use like any slider: it is taken up by pulling on both strands.
A tube, and not a cabochon
The stone is cut as a tube, a cylinder drilled right through, and not set in a mount. The chain passes through it. It is the simplest stringing there is, and it is also the one that shows the most stone: nothing hides the faces.
The green is dark, dense, almost bottle, with the slight translucency expected of jade. Look at the tube against the light rather than flat: that is where the colour opens.
And the thing to do, on a drilled stone, is to look at the hole. On a dyed stone the colourant concentrates there and the rim is darker than the rest. The colour also follows the micro cracks, in a network, instead of spreading through the mass. The checks that need no equipment.
What I do not know about the metal
The chain and the beads are gold tone, that is to say plated on an alloy my supplier does not specify. It is neither gold nor vermeil, and I am not going to write it otherwise. On a chain this fine, the plating wears first on the links that rub against the skin.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to jade worn close to the skin
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.
Jade that touches the skinTradition holds that a piece worn against the skin gradually comes into accord with its wearer. What is actually observed is a polish forming through friction and a film of sebum that changes its gloss. 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 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.
Dark green and restraintDeep greens were long kept for ceremonial pieces rather than everyday adornment, and they were associated with gravity. It is a convention of taste, not a property of the stone.
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.
