Why choose jade?

Most jewellery is metal. It's shiny, it's familiar, and it looks a lot like everyone else's. Jade is different. It's a stone with real colour, it has been treasured for thousands of years, and it is tough enough to carve into a chain you can wear every day. Here's what's worth knowing before you choose a piece.

What jade actually is

"Jade" is the name for two different minerals that look alike: nephrite and jadeite. For most of history they were treated as the same stone. A French mineralogist, Alexis Damour, showed they were different in 1863.

Nephrite is made of fine, fibrous crystals matted together like felt. Jadeite is made of small, tightly packed grains. Both are genuine jade. Our collection includes both: nephrite, Guatemalan jade (often sold as Mayan jade) and Burmese jade from Myanmar.

Why it lasts

Hardness and toughness are not the same thing. Hardness is how well a stone resists scratches. Toughness is how well it resists breaking.

Jadeite sits at about 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs hardness scale and nephrite at about 6 to 6.5, so jade holds up well against everyday scratches. Where jade really stands out is toughness. Because its crystals interlock, a crack has a hard time running through it. That's why carvers can cut jade into thin, interlocking links that would snap in a more brittle stone.

Hardness is how well a stone resists scratches. Toughness is how well it resists breaking. Jade is famous for the second.

It still deserves some care. A hard knock against stone or tiles can chip any gem, so take it off for heavy lifting or contact sport.

The colour is the stone

With plated jewellery, the colour is a thin layer on top. With natural jade, the green, black or white runs all the way through. Scratch the surface and you find more of the same stone.

That's also why treatment matters. Lower-grade jade is sometimes bleached, dyed or filled with polymer to fake a better colour. Our jade is never dyed, bleached or polymer-filled, so the colour you see is the colour it came out of the ground with. Natural colour varies from block to block, which means no two pieces are exactly alike.

Why people have prized it for thousands of years

Jade has been carved in China since the Neolithic era, more than 7,000 years ago, and was valued there above gold. Confucius compared its qualities to the virtues of a good person.

On the other side of the world, the Maya and the Aztecs also valued jade more highly than gold. Maya rulers were buried wearing it: the jade death mask of K'inich Janaab' Pakal, a ruler of Palenque, is one of the best-known examples. Much of their jade came from the Motagua valley in Guatemala, which is still where Guatemalan jade is found today.

Jade you can wear every day

A jade Cuban link keeps the shape everyone already knows and swaps the metal for something with depth. On the wrist, light passes into the translucent stones and makes them glow. The darker stones, like black jade, read bold and graphic instead.

If you're choosing your first piece, a bracelet is the easy start. If you already wear a chain every day, a jade necklace is the bigger change.

Caring for jade

• Wipe it with a soft, dry cloth.
• Keep it away from harsh chemicals and cleaners.
• Store it on its own, in its gift box, so the links don't rub against harder jewellery.
• Take it off for heavy lifting or anything where it could hit something hard.

Looked after, a jade piece can outlast its owner. That's a big part of why people have valued it for so long.