Evil Eye Jade Ring in White Stone, Cut from One Piece

40,90 €

Evil eye jade ring in white stone: a solid band cut from a single piece, with an almond shaped gold tone motif set with a green stone at its centre.

The protective eye comes from the Mediterranean basin, not from the tradition of Chinese jade. The pairing is contemporary, and I would rather write that than invent a lineage for it.

A stone ring cannot be resized: it has to be right first time. The size guide.

How to measure your size: the guide, category by category

French sizing: the finger circumference in millimetres, so a 54 measures 54 mm.

Category:

An evil eye jade ring in white stone: a solid band cut from a single piece, on which an almond shaped gold tone motif is set with a green stone at its centre. The motif does not come from the tradition of jade, and that is the first thing this page says.

In four lines

  • A solid band, cut from one block: no seam, no join.
  • An almond shaped gold tone motif, set with a small green stone.
  • It cannot be resized: a stone ring does not adjust.
  • The gold tone is a plating on an unspecified alloy.

The evil eye is not a Chinese motif

The protective eye, the nazar, comes from the Mediterranean basin and the Near East: it is found in Greece, in Turkey, in the Levant, since antiquity. It does not belong to the repertoire of Chinese jade, which does not use it.

This ring therefore puts together an Asian stone and a Mediterranean motif, and it is a contemporary creation. I would rather write that than invent a lineage for it: it would be easy to speak of ancestral protection and let it be believed that the two have always gone together. They have not.

What remains true is that the design works: a gold tone almond on a white band is a clean contrast, and a jewel that is noticed without being large.

A solid band, and what that implies

The ring is not a metal shank carrying a stone: the stone is the band, cut and drilled in one piece. Jade allows that because it is tough, that is to say its interlocked crystals resist the spread of a crack. The difference between hardness and toughness.

The consequence is practical and it matters: a stone ring cannot be resized. You do not file it, you do not tighten it, you do not stretch it. It has to be right first time, and that is why the size guide counts for more here than on a metal mount. The size guide.

The other consequence is that it breaks if it falls on a tiled floor. Jade is tough, not unbreakable, and a thin band is still a thin band.

White, and why it is the hard case

On a green, the weighing settles things broadly. On a white the intervals brush against each other: dolomitic marble reaches 2.85, nephrite starts at 2.90. And since a stone is not dyed white, examining the hole or the rim, which works on a coloured stone, gives nothing here.

What you look at then is the translucency at the edge of the band: jade lets daylight through over a few millimetres, giving a diffuse and warm glow, where marble stays milky right through. The checks that need no equipment.

As for the word jade on its own, it says little: what is sold under that name is very often serpentine or dyed quartzite. None of those names denotes jade. All the rings in the shop, and what separates the two minerals.

Additional information

StoneJadeite or nephrite, not resolved
ColourWhite
Stone shapeSolid band
MotifEvil eye
MountingNone
MetalGold tone, alloy not stated
SettingBezel set
Worn byWomen
Mineral familyCalcic amphibole, Sodium aluminium pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)6 to 7
Reference density2.90 to 3.36 g/cm³
ToughnessExceptional, interlocking crystals
TreatmentNot determined
OriginOutside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed

What tradition attributes to the evil eye 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 Mediterranean nazar The blue eye against the evil eye is attested around the Mediterranean since antiquity, in Greece, in Anatolia and in the Levant. Its colour is traditionally blue, not green, and it has no Chinese equivalent. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
White before green Cultivated Chinese taste long placed white nephrite at the top, well above green. The present hierarchy comes from the trade in Burmese jadeite, from the eighteenth century onward, and it is a matter of fashion rather than of quality.
The jade you patinate by hand Chinese 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.
A stone of moral virtue In 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.

These readings are told, not verified. The virtues attributed to jade, said honestly, and the moral virtues in Confucius.

A stone does not replace a doctor and treats nothing: the full warning is here.

Delivery Times

Dispatch within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no stock in reserve, and I will not promise a date I could not meet.

Shipping Costs

€6.99 whatever the destination, free on orders over €47 to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount is shown in your basket before you pay.

The Packaging, and Why It Matters

Every piece travels in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not a question of presentation: the hardness of jade is unremarkable, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together arrive marked.

Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind

No need to give a reason. An email is enough to open a return; there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.

Getting the size wrong is the most common reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes spent measuring almost always avoids it. The size guide.

It is all set out here, with no small print.

The Simple Routine

Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That is all, and it is enough.

What You Must Never Do, and Why

No ultrasonic cleaners, no steam, no solvents, no heat source. This is not a precaution for show: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier does not know it, and weighing identifies the mineral without telling me anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands 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 difficult to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it usable for axe heads in the Neolithic. Its hardness, by contrast, is unremarkable, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7: that is what dulls a 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 knocks against hard edges are common. 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.

Cleaning a piece of jade jewellery and storing it.

What I Do, and What I Do Not Do

My name is Jade. French, from Morbihan, living in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them mounted: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and the metalwork is not done by my hand. What I bring is the selection, and with this material that is what decides everything.

I am not a gemmologist, not a lapidary, not a therapist, and I do not claim to be.

I Weigh, I Do Not Certify

Before a listing goes online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unmounted, 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 listing, and not every piece. I do not handle the piece that is sent to you, and I would rather write that down than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.

What I Cannot Know

The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier does not know it, and the scales do not tell me: they identify the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I do not have that done. So you will never read “Grade A jadeite”, “Type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.

Where My Jade Comes From

No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is legal. Not the one you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did 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 company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but a US person is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. A single supply chain serves ten markets, so it has to hold up in the most demanding of them. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin charter.

The whole story.