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.
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.
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.
