Bamboo jade earrings: a short segment of stalk, node included, cut from a translucent yellow green stone and laid across the lobe, flanked by two pale stones cut as marquises that figure the leaves. They are worn flat against the ear.
In four lines
A bamboo segment, node included, cut from the stone.
Two pale marquise stones on either side, like leaves.
Studs: they are worn flat against the lobe, without hanging.
The record will depend on the claws: they must lift without forcing.
A stud, and who it is the right choice for
Unlike almost all the section, this pair does not hang: the stone is laid flat against the lobe and held by a post that passes through the ear. It is a stud, and that radically changes who it suits.
It does not move, so it catches nowhere: not in a scarf, not in a roll neck, not in hair. It does not pull on the lobe either, since the weight is held against the ear instead of hanging. It is the pair you keep on to sleep or to play sport.
Its drawback is discretion: at this size and lying on the lobe, it is seen close up and not from a distance. If you want a piece that gets noticed, the drops in the section will do better. All the earrings in the section.
Bamboo, and why that motif
The segment is cut with its node, that swelling which marks the boundary between two internodes of a real stalk. It is the detail that makes the motif legible: without it, this would be a plain little bar.
Bamboo is one of the three friends of winter, with pine and plum: three plants that hold when the others give way, and that have served for centuries as images of constancy in Chinese painting and poetry. It bends under snow and straightens again.
Its nodes, precisely, mark the stages of a progression, and that is why bamboo is readily given at a passage: studies, a new post, a departure. I report it as a custom, not as a property of the stone.
A yellow green stone, and what remains to be established
The tint is unusual in this catalogue: a translucent yellow green, closer to lime than to frank green, with a clear gradation from one end of the segment to the other. That variation follows the material, which is the behaviour of a colour of formation.
It proves nothing on its own. What is sold under the name of jade is very often serpentine, around 2.6, or dyed quartzite, around 2.65, when nephrite starts at 2.90. Only density settles it without a laboratory.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to bamboo 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 three friends of winterBamboo, pine and plum form a trio found together on screens, porcelain and jewellery. Three plants that cross the bad season, read as three ways of not giving in.
Hollow, therefore humbleThe bamboo stalk is empty inside, and scholars saw in it an image of modesty: full of nothing, so ready to receive. The comparison is classical in Tang poetry.
A node, a stageThe nodes that punctuate the stalk serve as an image for the stages of a life or a career. Hence the habit of giving bamboo at a passage, and the Chinese word for the node also says integrity.
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.
Shipped within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from the day it ships. I keep no buffer stock, and I will not promise a date I cannot meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 no matter the destination, and free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. The exact amount shows in your cart before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece leaves in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not about presentation: jade’s hardness is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust rates 7. Two pieces of jewelry that travel together arrive scratched.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No reason needed. One email opens a return, and there is no form to fill out. Return shipping 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 cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. The reason is not caution for its own sake: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier cannot tell me, and the weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The treatment information page.
The Scratch, and Where It Comes From
Jade is tough, meaning very hard to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it possible to turn it into axes 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 rates 7, and that is what dulls a jade, not impacts. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and lotion, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening, and sports, where the hard knocks happen. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone does: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. I am French, from Morbihan in Brittany, and I live in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I carve nothing, and I do not do the metalwork myself. What I bring is the sorting, and with this material the sorting decides everything.
I am not a gemologist, a lapidary, or a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not 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, and not every piece. I never handle the piece that ships to you, and I would rather say so plainly than let anyone believe otherwise. The method, with its three limitations.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier cannot tell me, and neither can the scale: it establishes the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only laboratory infrared spectroscopy would settle the question, and I do not have that testing done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information page.
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 October 7, 2016. What applies today dates from April 8, 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but an American is not allowed to do business with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. I run one supply chain for ten markets, and it has to stand up to the strictest one. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin policy.
