White jade earrings: an elongated drop of white stone, polished without a facet and tapered towards the bottom, capped with a silver tone cup and hung from a small clip hoop.
On a white the weighing separates less clearly: dolomitic marble reaches 2.85, nephrite starts at 2.90. So I will also look at the grain and the holding of the point.
White melts away on a very fair skin and stands out on a darker one: that is worth looking at before ordering. Why I write it down.
White jade earrings: an elongated drop of white stone, polished without a facet and tapered towards the bottom, capped with a silver tone cup and hung from a small clip hoop. The stone is translucent and takes the light of the skin.
In four lines
An elongated white drop, polished without a facet, tapered at the bottom.
A silver tone cup at the top, a small clip hoop.
The stone is translucent: it lights up by transparency.
The record will depend on the cup: it must come off without forcing.
A drop, and nothing else
No engraving, no subject, no pave. A stone cut as an elongated tear, polished over its whole surface, and a hoop that holds it. It is the most neutral pair in the section, and that is what makes it easy to wear with anything.
The shape is tapered towards the bottom, which lengthens it visually and gives a slimmer piece than a round drop. It swings freely under the hoop instead of staying against the lobe.
White is the most discreet colour in the catalogue, and also the hardest to match to a skin: on a very fair skin the stone melts away, on a darker skin it stands out clearly. That is worth looking at before ordering. All the earrings in the section.
The same model exists in dark green
This drop is sold in two colours, and that is the only difference between the two references: the dark green version carries exactly the same cut under the same hoop.
The difference is not only one of taste, however. On a white the weighing separates less clearly: dolomitic marble, sold under the name of white jade, reaches 2.85 when nephrite starts at 2.90, and five hundredths are not enough to conclude.
The green version goes out under reserve for another reason, which its own page explains. Both are therefore worth reading before choosing, and neither of them hides its limit.
What I will look at besides the figure
The grain, in grazing light. A marble is made of calcite or dolomite crystals big enough to be seen: the surface sparkles in small facets when you turn it. A nephrite is made of far finer interlocked needles: it shows a matt and even felting, with no point of brilliance.
The second thing is the point. The bottom of the drop is tapered, almost thin, and it has stayed clean. On a marble, which is soft and not very tough, an edge that fine blunts in the cutting. That it has stayed frank is a sign in favour of jade.
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 whiteOld Chinese taste placed at the summit the white nephrites taken from Xinjiang, called mutton fat for their greasy, dense look. The hierarchy reversed in the eighteenth century with the arrival of the green jadeites from Burma.
Jade at the earsThe jueshi, slit jade rings worn at the ear, are among the oldest known Chinese ornaments: examples are found in Neolithic burials, long before the discs and the belt pendants.
What you do not seeIn scholarly taste a jade without decoration was worth more than an ornamented one: the quality of the material had to be enough. The plainest pieces were often the dearest, and a bare object leaves nothing to hide behind.
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.
