A pale green jade bracelet: domed slabs in a very light water green, joined edge to edge on a double elastic. It is the lightest to the eye of all the plaque bracelets in the section, and the one that asks most of the light in order to exist.
In four lines
A very light water green, which lets the daylight through across its whole thickness.
Smooth, domed slabs, with no engraving, joined edge to edge.
Two parallel elastics: the ring stays flat and does not twist.
Taken at the wrist, it goes on by stretching.
A colour that depends on the light
On a dark green the colour is there whatever happens. On a water green like this one, it makes and unmakes itself according to the lighting. Under a desk lamp the bracelet looks almost greenish white; near a window the daylight crosses each slab and the colour comes up at once.
That is what you come to a pale jade for, and it is also what you should know before ordering: photographs of a pale green are always more flattering than the piece under a ceiling light.
The advantage is that a stone this translucent does not deceive. The light passing through it reveals the grain, and a glass or a resin do not render the same thing: they let it through too frankly, without that milky diffusion which is the signature of jade.
The plaque format, and what it changes
The slabs are each drilled with two holes and threaded on two parallel elastics, which stops them pivoting. The ring stays flat, it keeps its orientation and it lays a continuous surface against the skin, instead of rolling like a row of beads.
It is the quietest format in the section: nothing tangles in a sleeve, nothing knocks. In exchange it is seen, because fifteen or so adjoining slabs cover far more wrist than a row of beads.
On a pale tint this format has a second effect: the edges of the slabs touch and the light passes from one stone to the next, which gives the whole a continuity a row of beads never has.
What you can check yourself
Look at the drill hole. On a dyed stone the colourant concentrates there and the rim is darker than the rest. On a pale stone a clearly ringed hole is a strong signal, because there is little colour to hide.
Then look at the slabs one against the other. They should not be rigorously the same green: a colour perfectly reproducible over fifteen pieces is what a dye produces, not a rock.The checks that need no equipment.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to pale 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.
Water green, called the colour of springVery light greens are associated in the texts with renewal and the first shoots, by simple analogy of colour. It is an image of the season, nothing more, and it says nothing about the stone. What tradition puts into a jade bracelet.
Transparency as a qualityScholarly taste often prefers a jade that lets the light through to an opaque one, and makes of it an image of candour. It is an aesthetic preference turned moral, not a measurement.
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 polish, and what is read in itThe scholarly tradition associates jade with a soft rather than a sharp gloss, and makes of it an image of restraint. It is an aesthetic reading turned moral, not an observation about the stone.
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.
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.
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.
