our Quality Guide
Colour
Type ‘A’ jadeite jade comes in many colours. Naturally occurring colours range from colourless to green to lavenders to russet and even black. With many colours of choose from, one must see his or her skin tone in order to know what colours of jade suit the wearer. Popular colours are lavender, green and icy jadeite, with the latter being near colourless.
The most sought are colours in the market now are lavenders and greens, with imperial green being the most valuable and costly. However, many retailers in the market have loosely used the term “Imperial Green”. The true imperial green refers to a highly translucent intense green that is luminous almost in natural sunlight, making it look like a shining clear deep green pearl.
Another popular colour is lavender: these range from bluish lavender to lilac pink. Lavender jadeites are often tricky to deal with, most with strong colour lack good translucency. It is about the balance of colour and translucency when it comes to lavender jadeite.
Near colourless to colourless jade, known commonly as Icy jade, has been gaining momentum in the last 10 years. To have watery translucent jadeite, it has to be harvested near river material. At Little Jadeite House, our best-selling jadeite items are mostly in icy jade.
Here at our atelier, we seek to match good quality stones with modern designs. The tone and colour of each piece is carefully selected with the eye and taste of our team.
Grain Structure
Every piece of jade has a different grain structure. Why is grain structure important? Grain structures directly affect how pleasing the stone is on the naked eye.
The lowest quality jade usually have a coarse or rough grain structure. This means that there is very little water in the stone, causing the piece to look very dry, almost like a stone instead of a gem. You’d be able to see dry white patches of “cement” like grains on the jadeite piece.
Medium grain structures are slightly better than coarse grain structures but there are still largely patchy and sore to the eye. This is the most common type of grain structure jade available in the mass market region.
Fine grain structure: The jade piece will have a nice sheen and lustre to it. With enough water content, the grain structures are finer and look more like small strands instead of long coarse grain strands. With a fine grain texture, the jade piece will exude a pleasing look to the eye, with the wearer wanting to touch and feel its smoothness often. Fine grain structures are often smooth and radiates a lustre that is unlike any other gem you’d see.
Very fine grain structure: Our favourite. The best jadeite pieces available are very fine grained. The grain structures are almost invisible to the eye, with little tiny dots scattered across the jade piece. With very fine grains, the jade is able to reflect much of the light that hits the piece, creating a luminous shiny “jelly” like look that makes everyone drool. This grain structure category also produces the best kinds of jade, regardless of colour.
Very fine grain structures are accompanied by very good translucency, which makes the piece collectible and heirloom worthy.
At Little Jadeite House, we only sell Jadeite pieces that are fine grained and very fine grained. This is because the core of our business is to sell quality investment jadeite pieces that you can wear and pass down to the next generation. We do also have a collection of ready to wear pieces of fine grained jadeite that is not too expensive – catered to the modern wearer who wants something to add onto his or her daily wardrobe.
Translucency and Clarity
Translucency is determined by how much light can pass through the piece of jadeite. However, one must clearly take note that it is also affected by the thickness of the jadeite piece. For example, a 2mm thick piece of jadeite may appear to be very translucent, however, if a piece of 5mm thick jadeite looks as translucent, definitely the thicker piece of jadeite is more valuable.
Many retailers cut their jadeite pieces very thin to make them look more translucent than it actually is. Therefore, in purchasing jadeite, do take note of the thickness. Here at our atelier, we only sell jadeite pieces of good thickness, often shunning the marginally thin pieces that prove to be brittle and dangerous to wear.
The more translucent the jade piece is, the more valuable. The highest level of translucency is the glassy translucent jadeite. Often known as Near Transparent (Glassy Variety), these jade pieces are very fine grained and very clear, giving an even tone with strong lustre. The jadeite of dreams. Highly translucent jadeites are also much sought after in the market – these jade pieces are also very clear though not complete clear like the glassy variety. They also have good water content and fine grains. Highly translucent jadeite are worthy of collection, with bigger pieces fetching more value.
Opaque jade is the poorest quality available. It is characterized by light not being able to pass through the piece due to the coarse grains that fill the stone, allowing no light to pass through.
We do not sell Opaque jade at all here at Little Jadeite House. We also advise all our potential or existing customers not to purchase such jadeite from anywhere.
All in all, it is often a balancing act of translucency, colour as well as price. Little jadeite house aims to find the balance for each piece. Speak with us about any of our piece so we can provide you with a more in depth understanding of jadeite. We assure you the quality of each piece of jade that leaves us, to your very own loving hands. Do whatsapp us at +65 97356878 and follow us on Instagram @littlejadeitehouse and Like our facebook page Little Jadeite House. Hope to hear from you soon.
