Wood
Warm, and light.
Warm and light in the hand. The grain differs from bead to bead, and its colour can deepen as it is worn.
Materials
What
holds it.
Wood, stone, cord and a few small metal parts. How each one feels, what we will tell you about it, and what we will never claim.
How each one
feels.
Before any name or number: what you notice when you hold it.
Stone
Cool, with weight.
Cool at first touch, with a weight you notice. Light passes into some and stops at others; no two are quite alike.
Wood with stone
Warm against cool.
Warm against cool, light against heavy, grain against shine, in one strand. Many of our pieces are built on that contrast.
Cord & small parts
What keeps it together.
Cords, knots, spacers and caps hold the beads in place. Cords wear with time, and can be replaced.
For every piece, before release
What we will
tell you.
Being confirmed on our samples now
- 01The name of each material.
The common name, and the precise one where it matters. For jade, whether it is jadeite or nephrite.
Trade names can blur what something is. - 02Whether it has been treated.
Dyed, heated, waxed, filled or coated: if it has, we say so.
It changes what you are buying, and how you care for it. - 03Where it comes from, when we know.
And when we do not know, we will say that instead.
A guess dressed up as a fact helps no one. - 04Sizes, length and weight.
Bead sizes, strand length, and how heavy it is.
So you can picture it on your own wrist. - 05Which words come from photographs.
Colour words on this site are read from our pictures.
Colour on a screen is not colour in hand. - 06Who made what.
Our design, a maker's beads, someone's hands on the knots. We record it, and show it on each piece.
Credit, and responsibility, belong where the work was done.
What we will never claim
- That a bead brings luck, wealth, love, health or safety.
- That wood or stone heals, calms, or changes your “energy”.
- That something we designed is an ancient ritual.
- That a material is rare or precious, when we cannot show it.
- That “Chinese culture has always believed” anything we cannot point to.
What a piece can do is smaller, and truer: it can give what matters to you a place to stay.
Living with it
A few habits
that help it last.
General guidance. Care for each specific material will be listed with it.
- Keep it dry. Take it off to swim, shower or exercise.
- Last on, first off. Put it on after perfume and lotion, not before.
- Store it on its own, so stones do not knock against each other.
- Wood may darken a little with wear. That is the wood, not a fault.
- Cords loosen over time. We intend to offer re-stringing. Intent