White jade bangle in nephrite, carved from a single piece, round in section and polished solid. A white that turns to cream and to pale grey, translucent over a few millimetres.
It is sized by inner diameter, not wrist size: it has to pass your closed hand, thumb tucked in. Measure before you order, it does not open and cannot be resized.
Bare stone, therefore weighable. But on a white stone the weighing cuts less cleanly, dolomitic marble being very close: I say so rather than leave it out.
A white jade bangle in nephrite, carved from a single piece, round in section and polished solid. The white is not a porcelain white: it turns to cream in places, to a very pale grey elsewhere, with a translucency that lights up when the light passes behind the ring.
In four lines
Carved from a single piece: no hinge, no clasp, no solder.
Sized by inner diameter, measured across your closed hand.
Bare stone, therefore weighable: the figure will be published here, with its date.
On a white stone the weighing is less decisive, and the listing explains why.
It Does Not Open, So You Measure First
A bangle has neither hinge nor clasp, and it cannot be resized: jade is far too tough to be cut open and soldered back like metal. The only question that matters before you buy is whether your hand will go through, and a tailor’s tape settles it.
It is not the wrist you need to measure. Close your hand, tuck your thumb as deep into your palm as it will go, measure around the widest point, and divide by 3.14: that gives you the minimum inner diameter. Add one or two millimetres, because a bangle that only just goes on will go on once, cold, and will not go back on during a heat wave. The method in detail, and the size guide.
White Is the Hardest Colour to Judge
On a green stone the density gap between jade and its imitations is comfortable: serpentine sits around 2.6, quartzite around 2.65, nephrite starts at 2.90. A kitchen scale is enough to separate them.
On a white stone the imitation is no longer called serpentine or dyed quartzite: nobody dyes a stone white. It is called dolomitic marble, often sold under flattering geographic names, and its density sits around 2.85. Against 2.90 for the bottom of the nephrite range. Four hundredths apart, where green gives you thirty.
In other words: my method works less well here, and I am not going to pretend otherwise in order to sell a piece. The figure will be published, it will be true, and it will be less conclusive than on a green stone. That is what a kitchen scale and a glass of water are worth, and it is all I promise. The three limitations of the weighing.
What White Lets You Check by Eye
What the scale loses, the eye partly recovers on this colour. White nephrite is translucent over a few millimetres: held in front of a lamp, the edge of the ring lights up and the light passes through, softening as it goes. Marble is more opaque, and its light stops sooner.
Look at the grain against the light too: nephrite is made of interlocking fibers, and that often shows as a slightly fibrous or cloudy look inside the body of the stone. Marble shows crystalline grains instead, like sugar. Neither one is proof. The checks that need no equipment at all.
Nephrite, and What That Word Changes
This piece is listed as nephrite, a calcium amphibole, one of the two minerals the word jade covers. The other is jadeite, a pyroxene, and the two are entirely unrelated: Alexis Damour established that in 1863. What sets them apart.
White nephrite is the one ancient China prized most, long before the clear greens the market overvalues today: jadeite only reached China in the 18th century. And on a thin ring, nephrite offers the better toughness of the two, a structure of interlocking fibers that stops a crack from spreading. Its hardness stays ordinary, 6 to 6.5, and the quartz in dust, which rates 7, will dull the curve long before any impact chips it. The difference between hardness and toughness.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
White
Stone shape
Solid bangle
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Rigid bangle
Metal
None
Setting
No setting
Worn by
Unisex
Paired stones
None, jade only
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 6.5
Reference density
2.90 to 3.03 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What Tradition Attaches to the Jade Bangle
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blend it into the rest of the listing. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of this stone's history. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
The left wristSeveral Chinese traditions link wearing the bangle on the left wrist to the idea of receiving rather than giving. The custom is widespread; no basis for it is known beyond the custom itself.
Never taking it offA bangle goes on once and stays on, sometimes for a lifetime. The closed shape has much to do with it: this is not a piece of jewellery you choose in the morning, it is an object you wear.
White, the older colourAncient China placed white jade very high, long before the clear greens the market looks for today: jadeite only reached China in the 18th century. So the hierarchy of colours is a matter of period, not of nature.
The scholar's stoneIn 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, and it is nephrite the old texts describe, since jadeite only reached China in the 18th century.
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.
