Jade Color and Meaning for Jade Lovers

I went to a jewelry and fashion wholesale trade show last weekend.  It's one of my favorites because most of the vendors will sell individual items instead of a wholesale large purchase.  I often make purchases for myself: handbags, jewelry, clothing. First I shop for business, then turn around and shop for myself.

Two of the three vendors who sell jade and jadeite were absent this time.  The vendor who often designs necklaces made from jade and other beads, pearls had told me  at the last show that business was slower and she might not be at this one.  The only vendor who sold jade was a seller of gemstone beads strings used to make jewelry pieces.  He is Chinese, and always brings some jade and jadeite small carvings, and sometimes jadeite pendants.  This time he had only one lot of jadeite beads on the 15" strings and he was explaining to a woman the different between the jadeite and other gemstones that look like jadeite.  The woman wanted jadeite, but compared to the aventurine, mawsitsit, and other stone that is often sold as jade, the color wasn't as pretty and vibrant.  And the jadeite string was much higher priced.  She was asking how you could tell the difference, and the seller was trying to keep it simple because there's so much drama around jade and natural-ness that most people really don't care to hear it all.  He held the jadeite beads on the string to the light to show that you could see light through it, and the paleness of the jadeite had a soft grayish lavender hue.  The other stones didn't have the translucence and the color didn't have the translucent quality.  By "translucent" I don't mean transparent: I mean that you can see light through it.

The woman decided to buy the beads that looked like jadeite, but were not, and she was going to have her jewelry maker use them to make "jade" jewelry to sell.  All the other people at the vendor's booth agreed that was a good idea, because it would be more pretty.

Why isn't jadeite more colorful?  Jadeite that is being mined now is mostly gray and spotty, and that's why it doesn't sell well unless it's color treated so it's B or C grade.  I don't know whether there really isn't good green jadeite, or if it's just not available to be mined because of government politics in Burma (Myanmar).  Some jade business owners I know in China tell me that they get their best color jadeite from illegally stolen jadeite from the mines.

When the woman and other buyers left the Chinese bead seller, I looked at one of his jadeite carvings, and he noticed my jadeite bangle I was wearing,  all white with a big vein of imperial green.  He asked to look at it closer and I took it off for him.  He held it to his light, "chimed" it, and told me that it was very rare to get that now and it was worth a great deal more than I paid for it.  He told me I should put it away because of it's value, not wear it.  I showed him it had a crack where I hit a counter top with it, and he said that crack damage didn't matter, it was still the quality of the jadeite stone that was so valuable.

He pulled out a jadeite pendant and showed it to me, and it had a wholesale price of $600.  I told him I had a similar color jadeite pendant I bought quite a few years ago on the web site, and he suggested I keep it as it would increase in value.  I could keep it all, but I'd rather sell it.  Although I love having all the jade around me that's in my inventory, I bought it to resell it, and a drawer full is enough for my personal collection.   It's pretty, and I would like to keep it, but it's still for sale on Jade Heaven.

"Pixiu Protects" Jadeite Pendant JHP75

Jade Update from China: Real Jade vs Fake Jade for Jade Health Tools, Jade Eggs, Jade Rollers

I recently contacted my jade associate in China to discuss jade rollers.   I need more to sell because they are one of YYJ best sellers, and I needed the current price to fill a wholesale order for a spa. It seems the jade business has slowed tremendously over the past few months.  My number one jade carver quit his jade carving business and moved to another city to live with his father and work in his jade carving business so they wouldn't need other staff.  My associate told me that when the jade carvers are filling orders for outside of China, they are using marble, not jade.  It seems that people who ordered the jade rollers, jade eggs and jade ben wa balls and gua sha tools had customer complaints that the jade was not dark green and  "not strong enough" for commercial use by western people.  Marble is stronger than jade,  and can be made into rollers easier so they can make the "jade" rollers stronger.

I often search online to see what kind of jade other people are selling, and have wondered about the strange green color of jade eggs and rollers I saw in image searchers.  This is a jade roller that is probably made of marble, and the price is lower than jade real jade rollers:

These are Ying Yu Jade rollers:

I thought perhaps the first photo was just a poor photo of "jade" because it's difficult to get an accurate photo that shows the "glow" of jade.

People who don't "know" jade frequently purchase the most green they can find because that's how they perceive good quality and real jade.  Not true now.

The jade mines in China are government owned mines.  Over the years I've been selling jade, I've seen the jade bangle bracelets from China being sold for very  low prices.  Chinese jade sellers have sold so much jade and sold it cheaply that now the good green natural Chinese jade isn't available.  They are looking for new jade mines, but haven't found that traditional good green natural Chinese jade.

And that's sad.  Chinese jade used to be so natural with good qi energy used in Chinese medicine practice for centuries.  I still have a few boxes of the older and more green jade bangles.  But getting jade rollers, eggs and ben wa balls, and other jade health tools in good color green has been difficult.

My associate also told me the "river jade" with the natural colors is not easy to get now.  This river jade often has the five colors that are associated with the body's qi energy meridians, and used for health and healing.

When you are searching for Chinese jade, especially for jade health tools, jade eggs and jade ben wa balls, don't be fooled by the deep green color.  It often looks dull in photos, but you can't go by that because jade photos need special attention to get them to look like they really are, and computer monitors and device screens sometimes show the colors differently.  And often the seller won't know they don't have real jade.

That trust of jade is a reason jade selling is slowing.

Genuine natural Chinese jade eggs for women

Marble eggs for women's vaginal health

What Does My Jade Mean to Me

We're still homeless, and it will take at least three more weeks before the basics of electricity, water will be installed and we can move in.  All of the jade that's on the web site is in another building, and the unlisted jade is in a climate controlled storage unit.  Late afternoon or early evening, I go to my office location to pack orders and do business tasks.  The business computer and printer are in the office, but I have a laptop I can respond to emails, post on Facebook, and write these blogs.  I don't have any mobile phone service, my AT&T signal isn't strong enough to connect.  If I need to make a phone call, I walk to a lake that has cell towers on the other side, sit at a picnic table and try to get 2 bars to make or receive calls.  And the wifi in our rental room is not reliable.  I feel very out of touch.

The lake I go to is like all Florida lakes.  Lots of alligators in them.  I didn't think much about them because only the little ones come near the shore, but since the alligator attacked the small child at the Disney resort this week,  I think about them a lot when I'm there.  I wear my deep deep almost black jade bangle for the protection energy, but I still move away when I see the alligators.

Deep deep green almost black Chinese jade carved "Two Dragons Play Pearl"  bangle
Dragon is symbol of yang and protection, black jade has qi energy for protection

I miss having all the jade inventory in the same place that I am.  At first, I thought it was more relaxing for me to have "business" at a remote location that I went to for a couple of hours to work, then when I left I didn't have to "work" anymore because it was "there" and I am "here".  Jade has qi energy, but I didn't realize how much I felt it until it's absent.  The house building really isn't stressful, and I don't get anxiety about it, because I trust that it will work out okay.  And if it's not "perfect", the way I want it, I can adapt because that give me an opportunity to deal with change, and growth from handling it. So I don't feel stressed and anxious about the house issue.  But I don't have the overall good energies of mind, body and spirit.  I have the strangest, most bizarre dreams.  I have my jade bangle on all the time, and some of my personal jade with me, but not having that huge inventory has changed me.  It's like I feel my age, and I feel "normal",  not as free spirited and overcoming the adversity of life.  When I went to work in my home office,  and touched jade to list it, or organize it, or just move it around, the energy was inspiring, an infusion of bliss.

That's what I miss the most while being homeless:  my jade inventory.

How to Take Care of Your Jade Bangle Bracelet with Every Day Wearing

I take very good care of my jade inventory that I sell online.  I store it in a cool, dark place that has some humidity.  Jade mines are cool, dark and damp, and these elements keep jade looking its best. If you are shopping for jade in Chinatown, or even in China, and the shop is well light, the jade is displayed on glass shelves and there are no water containers along side of them, the jade hasn't been well cared for and may become brittle.

When you wear a jade bangle bracelet,   it's not difficult to take care of.  A few cautions: don't let direct sun shine on it when your outdoors.  And if you will be working around hard surfaces, you might want to wear gloves that cover it so it won't get damaged. Your body qi energy mixes with the jade: you feel better wearing jade, and jade looks better on your wrist than stored in a drawer or jewelry box.

When I blogged about Jade for June, I went to my personal collection of jade bangle bracelets and chose one that I kept because it had some clarification lines in it, and it looks like cracks, but really is not.  In fact, clarification lines that you can see and feel are indications your jade is genuine and natural color.  I keep most of the small jade bangles that have clarification lines, chips, imperfections that are just part of natural jade, for myself because most customers don't want this kind of jade, even though it's usually better than the "perfect" ones.   The jade bangle I chose was so soft green I had to look hard to make sure it did have enough green to give me the summer "yang" energy quality.  It was mostly white with the green veins

Tropical Storm Colin was in the Gulf and preparing to land in Florida today when I went outdoors this morning.  And I had my jade bangle on.  There was some sun, so I sprayed sunblock all over my arms, and it got on my jade bangle and made a mess.  The remains of our storm damaged home were being removed today and I wanted to watch, and see what was under the home after the debris was removed.  I suspected there was unseen water damage through the siding that wasn't visible, and I was right, there was quite a bit of water damage.  I stayed with the crew all morning, then returned after lunch and stayed until late afternoon when the rain started.  It was so very hot and so humid, I was soaked through my clothes just from the humidity.  Before the rain got heavy, I took a quick shower, then went into the pool to cool off.  I took another shower after I got out of the pool, and as I was drying off in the heat and humidity, the coolness from my jade bangle was very evident.  When I looked at it, I was shocked at how different it looked.  The pool chlorine had washed off the sunscreen and sweat from the jade.  The activity of the day had mixed my body qi with the jade qi energy and the bangle was glowing like it had come alive.  And the green was really showing off.

My "imperfect" jadeite bangle bracelet.  It might have clarification
lines, but oh, the color and quality is absolutely gorgeous

That's an example of taking care of your jade that you wear all the time.  Treat your jade like you treat your body, and it will glow with your inner qi energy.

Sometimes customers order a jade bangle and when they receive it they tell me it doesn't look as nice as the photo shows.  The jade photos are taken outdoors in natural daylight, and aren't color edited.  When I list them, I think they don't look as pretty as they really are.  When I list them, I test them with refraction meter to make sure they are genuine jade, carry them around while they are getting photographed and listed, measured, and they are often on my wrist to make sure they don't have any chips or "imperfections" that need to be described on the listing.  They get about a week of handling, then go into storage, dark, damp and cool.   So when they arrive to you, they are often dull from storage, and shipping conditions.  Then when you wear it, it gets more pretty as its qi energy comes alive.

So, take care of your jade like you take care of yourself.  Wear it when you bathe to keep it clean.  Polish it with wax and soft cloth if it needs it, like sometimes you need a little moisturizer or makeup. Don't expose it to conditions you wouldn't expose yourself to.  When you see "every day jade bangle" in the description, that's a signal that the jade is sturdy enough to live a lifestyle with its owner.

Chinese Wellness and What Kind of Jade to Wear in June

Early Summer and Chinese Wellness

During June, it's crucial to keep the gut healthy. This helps prevent imbalance of the immune system and the allergies that come with it. If you've been taking antibiotics to tackle your bronchitis (very cooling in Chinese medicine), you may be suffering from dysbiosis, which means too much yeast, or overgrowth candida. To combat your digestive imbalance, try taking acidophilus; this can help replace healthy bacteria in your gut.

To improve your health, lighten up your diets in the spring. We naturally eat less or even fast to cleanse the body of the fat and heavy food of the winter. We emphasize food that contains the qualities of spring: fresh greens, sprouts, juicing with carrots, beets, apples, mint tea and the pungent cooking herbs basil, rosemary, dill and bay leaf. These are foods that support good liver function and produce and activate the enzymes that help in various phases of detoxification.

Give the liver as much support as possible. Reducing coffee and alcohol can be especially helpful. At the same time, increase dietary Vitamin C (found in citrus fruits, rosehips, bell peppers and broccoli), the B vitamins, especially B-12, general multi-vitamins, ginger, milk thistle, lightly cooked vegetables, and give the liver the protection it needs.

Other tips include drinking warm water with lemon, which helps cleanse the liver.

Be watchful of the effects of different foods on your mood and energy levels. If you suspect that a food makes you sleepy or irritable, try cutting it from your diet for a while.


 What Kind of Jade to Wear in June

If  you wear jade to balance your body qi, this is the time to wear your "spring green" color jade. The soft green is the color you see in nature this time of year, very natural, adding needed yin energy to the strong yang of new growth and changes.

"Enlightenment" Genuine Natural Jadeite Pendant JHP73