jade care tips

Here at Little Jadeite House, it’s more than just selling you a piece of our jewellery. It is selling you a passion. Every piece that leaves our atelier is well loved and curated by us. Hand-selected based on years of experience studying jadeite, we would want all our customers to also know how to take care of these wonderful pieces to be able to hand it down generations as heirlooms.

Jadeite is around 6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale. Having exceptional toughness and strong resistance to breaking and chipping makes these gemstones one of the world’s most well-loved jewels. Although it is highly resistant to scratches, some care should still be taken when wearing and handling jadeite.

Here are some of the most important care tips when it comes to caring for your precious jewels.

Cleaning: Type ‘A’ Jadeite are easy to clean. Put your pieces (set or unset) into a small pail or container and add running water with some mild soap to it. This would remove surface dirt the most natural and easy way. After that, you may towel down the jade pieces with a dry soft cotton cloth or towel and once its dry in room temperature, you may store it back to your jewellery cases. It’s that simple. Jadeite is inert to water, unlike organic gemstones like pearls and amber that are sensitive to soap, jadeite is unreactive to mild soaps. This will also give its gold setting a good clean shine to it!  Important tip: Handle with care and be careful not to accidentally drop your jewellery on the floor.

Wearing: Wear it and flaunt it in style! Wearing jadeite daily, to sleep, shower, climb mountains are all fine. The perspiration from our daily activities will inevitably rub off on the jade as well. Over time, the setting of 18-karat gold on the jade jewellery may lose its lustre, especially on white gold and rose gold. This is easily solved by making a trip to a reputable jeweller to go an electrolysis plating to restore the gold back to its original glory.

However, the jadeite itself will not lose lustre if it is not overexposed to the elements. It will only get shinier the more one wears it. The bodily oils on the skin will rub off on the jadeite and it will absorb into the pores of the jade stone, making it shinier and with stronger lustre. This is why most collectors say they “ 养玉 “, which in direct translation means rearing the jadeite. This is most commonly noticed on jade bangles whereby wearers will notice the jade get shinier and more lustrous after years of wear. The jade material absorbs your bodily oil and heat to harness good energy for you.

Accidents: Some knicks and knacks on your jadeite pieces are common. As one wears them daily and often, you may sometimes knock the jade bangle into objects. This sometimes results in a small knack or chip. Fret not, these are unavoidable in the wearing of jade jewellery and you’d get used to it over time. Its part and parcel of wearing jade. In order to minimize this, wear your most special pieces on elaborate occasions while having daily wear pieces that you like and also don’t mind having slight knocks on it. As long as you do not drop your jade or smash it hard, it will last you a lifetime.

In extreme cases, such as a slip in handling the jadeite pieces, they may drop onto the floor from an eye-level or higher, resulting in the jade piece breaking into multiple pieces after having many fissures. Cry. Painful when it happens, but in traditional jade beliefs, it means that the jade stone has avoided a major calamity for you. In this case, you may put the broken pieces into a small pouch and store it away in a drawer that doesn’t see light often. It is considered bad luck to wear a piece of broken jade.

Our advice: Jade can go through tough handling and daily wear easily. However, the one thing you cannot do to your jade jewellery is to drop it from a high level. Other than that, wear your jade like any other jewellery and let the piece harness good energy for you. It is a great feeling when the jade piece you’re wearing stays with you for years and you noticing the stronger lustre on the jade because it has absorbed your bodily heat. Also, many of us purchase jadeite on significant milestones of our life, making each and every piece extra special.

If you’ve further questions in Jade selection or questions on how to further care for your pieces, feel free to Whatsapp the team at +65 97356878 or drop us an Instagram message at @littlejadeitehouse.