SternenklarenRitter
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2020
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It has come to my attention that a traditional Indian-Chinese health practice has caught on lately in the west as a beauty hack. (TicToc strikes again.) Gua Shu involves scrubbing or massaging the skin with stone tools carved from jade. If you like that sort of thing, power to you, and the fancy little implements are excellent gift material. But I want to warn anyone who might listen: beware of knockoffs.
Jade, as the mineral jadeite, is mined in a relatively large number of locations across the world. A large minority of these locations have their jade locking away small amounts of asbestiform amphibole (capable of producing microscopic carcenogenic threads), perfectly safe if you're carving jewelry out of hunks of rock, but not the sort of thing you want to rub your skin with. Traditional manufactures of Gua Shu tools know perfectly well how to identify and source suitable and safe jade for their products, a cultural knowledge honed for thousands of years. However, western cosmetics companies and small workshops jumping on the bandwagon to fill this suddenly increased demand might lack the important knowledge of how to ensure their jade is safe enough to use in personal care products. I don't expect a repeat of J&J's baby powder (asbestos was in their talc) with eye cancer from jade razors, but a bit of caution never hurts.
Jade, as the mineral jadeite, is mined in a relatively large number of locations across the world. A large minority of these locations have their jade locking away small amounts of asbestiform amphibole (capable of producing microscopic carcenogenic threads), perfectly safe if you're carving jewelry out of hunks of rock, but not the sort of thing you want to rub your skin with. Traditional manufactures of Gua Shu tools know perfectly well how to identify and source suitable and safe jade for their products, a cultural knowledge honed for thousands of years. However, western cosmetics companies and small workshops jumping on the bandwagon to fill this suddenly increased demand might lack the important knowledge of how to ensure their jade is safe enough to use in personal care products. I don't expect a repeat of J&J's baby powder (asbestos was in their talc) with eye cancer from jade razors, but a bit of caution never hurts.
