How to Tell Jade, Nephrite, and Actinolite Apart (A Practical Guide With Tests You Can Do at Home)

Jade is the most faked stone in the crystal world. Walk into any flea market, scroll through an online marketplace, or browse a tourist shop and you'll see hundreds of items labeled "jade." Most of them aren't. The word has become a marketing term more than a mineral description, slapped onto everything from dyed quartz to molded glass. If you buy "jade" without testing it, you're probably buying something else. This guide walks you through practical tests you can run at home — no lab equipment required — to figure out what you actually have.

Step 1: Know the Three Stones

Before testing anything, you need to understand what "jade" actually refers to. The term covers two distinct minerals — jadeite and nephrite — and a third stone, actinolite, that gets lumped in because of its similar chemistry.

Jadeite

Jadeite is NaAlSi₂O₆, a pyroxene mineral. It sits at 6.5-7 on the Mohs scale, earning it the nickname "hard jade." What throws a lot of people off is that jadeite comes in virtually every color — green, white, lavender, red, yellow, black, and even blue. The most valuable form is imperial green jadeite, which can sell for more per carat than diamonds at auction. If someone tells you "jade only comes in green," they're wrong, and that misconception alone leads to a lot of misidentification.

Nephrite

Nephrite has the chemical formula Ca₂(Mg,Fe)₅Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂ and belongs to the amphibole mineral group. It rates 6-6.5 on the Mohs scale — slightly softer than jadeite — which is why it's called "soft jade" in Chinese trade terminology (though calling anything that can scratch steel "soft" takes some nerve). Nephrite typically appears in greens and whites, with a waxy luster. It's more common and more affordable than jadeite, which makes it the stone you're most likely to encounter in carved pieces, bangles, and decorative objects.

Actinolite

Here's where things get interesting. Actinolite shares the exact same chemical formula as nephrite — Ca₂(Mg,Fe)₅Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂. It's also an amphibole. The difference comes down to iron content: actinolite is essentially the iron-rich end of the nephrite spectrum. It's greener, softer (Mohs 5-6), and noticeably fibrous. In the crystal world, actinolite is the confusing middle child — too fibrous to be nephrite, too hard to be serpentine. You'll see it sold as "green jade" in markets where buyers don't know the difference.

Step 2: The Scratch Test

This is the fastest way to eliminate obvious fakes. Grab a steel knife or a steel file — steel sits at about 5.5 on the Mohs hardness scale — and try to scratch an inconspicuous part of the stone.

Jadeite won't scratch. At 6.5-7, it's harder than steel. Nephrite also won't scratch at 6-6.5. Actinolite is borderline — at 5-6, a steel file might leave a faint mark, especially if you press hard. On the other hand, serpentine (Mohs 2.5-5.5) scratches easily. Glass (Mohs 5.5) scratches easily. Calcite (Mohs 3) practically dissolves under a knife.

One thing to watch out for: quartz also won't scratch with a steel knife because it's a 7. But quartz looks nothing like jade when you run the other tests, so the scratch test is really about eliminating the cheap stuff right away. If your stone scratches with a kitchen knife, it's not jade. Move on.

Step 3: The Specific Gravity Test

Specific gravity (SG) measures how dense a stone is compared to water. This test takes a bit more effort but gives you a hard number to work with.

Here's the process. Weigh your stone in air on a digital scale. Note the weight. Then suspend the stone in water — a simple way is to tie it with thread and hang it from the scale's hook, or use a small container of water on a setup where the stone is fully submerged but not touching the container. Weigh it again. Now divide the air weight by the difference: SG = air weight / (air weight − water weight).

The numbers to compare against: jadeite runs 3.3-3.5, making it the heaviest of the bunch. Nephrite comes in at 2.9-3.1. Actinolite lands at 3.0-3.2. Serpentine is much lighter at 2.5-2.7, and glass is the lightest at 2.4-2.5. Pick up a piece of jadeite and a piece of serpentine of the same size — the jadeite will feel noticeably heavier in your hand. That's not imagination. That's physics.

Step 4: The Cold Test

Real jade — both jadeite and nephrite — feels cold when you first pick it up, and it stays cold longer than glass, resin, or plastic. This happens because jade has higher thermal conductivity than most fake materials. The stone pulls heat away from your skin faster.

Try it: pick up the stone. If it feels room temperature right away — like it's been sitting in a warm room — that's a red flag for glass or resin. Real jade stays cool to the touch for several seconds before warming up. Experienced jade dealers in Hong Kong and Myanmar use this test instinctively, picking up stones and sorting them by feel without thinking about it.

Is this test subjective? Absolutely. A cold room will make everything feel cold. A hot day will change things too. But combined with other tests, the cold test is a useful data point, and it's one of the reasons people who handle real jade regularly develop such a strong "feel" for fakes.

Step 5: Translucency Check

Hold a strong flashlight or LED light directly behind the stone. The way light passes through — or doesn't — tells you a lot.

Jadeite is translucent. Light passes through it, especially at thin edges, and high-quality jadeite can show an almost ethereal glow throughout. Nephrite is semi-translucent to translucent — some light gets through but it's less dramatic than jadeite. Actinolite shows translucency in thin pieces. Glass, ironically, is often more transparent than jade — if light pours through the stone like it's window glass, that's suspicious. Plastic is translucent but has a different quality to it — kind of flat and uniform.

The word jade dealers use is "glow." Real jade has a warm inner glow when backlit that glass and plastic can't replicate. Glass looks bright and transparent, like a bottle. Plastic looks flat. Jade looks like there's light inside the stone itself.

Step 6: The Structure Test

This one requires a 10x loupe — the small magnifying glass that jewelers use. They cost about five dollars online and they're worth every penny for this kind of work.

Look at the interior of the stone under magnification. Jadeite has a granular crystalline structure that looks like tightly packed sugar grains. If you've ever seen the inside of a sugar cube up close, that's roughly the texture you're looking for — tiny, interlocking crystals. Nephrite has a completely different internal structure: fibrous and "felted," like millions of microscopic hairs woven together. This is because nephrite is related to asbestos minerals (don't worry — it's safe to handle as solid stone). Actinolite shows even more obvious fibers — longer, more distinct than nephrite's tight felted pattern.

Glass, under a loupe, shows nothing. Smooth, featureless, no internal structure at all. Sometimes you'll spot tiny air bubbles, which is a dead giveaway. Plastic also shows no internal structure, and you might see molding marks or seams where the piece was cast.

Step 7: The Sound Test

Tap two pieces of jade together — or tap one piece with a small metal tool — and listen. Jadeite produces a high-pitched, resonant ring, almost like tapping a bell. Nephrite gives a lower-pitched ring but it's still musical and resonant. This "jade chime" has been used as a test in Chinese jade markets for centuries. Dealers will hang bangles from strings and tap them, listening for that distinctive ring.

Glass gives a dull clink — short, flat, lifeless. Plastic gives a dead thud, like tapping a piece of wood. The difference is obvious once you've heard real jade ring. If you tap a "jade" bangle and it sounds like tapping a drinking glass, something's off.

Step 8: UV Fluorescence

A UV flashlight (the cheap 395nm ones work) gives you another data point. Shine it on the stone in a dark room.

Jadeite sometimes shows weak fluorescence under long-wave UV, depending on whether it's been treated. Many dyed or polymer-impregnated jadeite pieces glow more than natural stone. Nephrite typically shows no fluorescence. Actinolite is the same — usually dark under UV. Glass might fluoresce depending on what was added during manufacturing. Resin and plastic often glow, sometimes brightly.

UV alone won't give you a definitive answer, but if your "jade" lights up like a glow stick under UV, that's worth investigating further. Natural, untreated jade is generally inert.

Step 9: Common Fakes to Watch For

Knowing what's out there helps you spot problems before you buy.

Serpentine sold as "jade" is the most common fake by far. Serpentine is cheap, abundant, and comes in greens that look jade-like at a glance. It's softer, lighter, and scratches with a knife, but most casual buyers never test it.

Glass is the second most common fake. It's molded into bangles, carved into pendants, and polished to look convincing. Bubbles under a loupe are the giveaway, along with the wrong SG and that lifeless sound when tapped.

Resin and plastic are the cheapest fakes. They're too light, warm to the touch immediately, and often have visible molding seams. These tend to show up in very cheap "jade" jewelry online.

Dyed quartz occasionally gets passed off as colored jade — particularly for lavender and yellow pieces. Quartz is harder than steel (Mohs 7), so the scratch test won't catch it, but the granular structure looks different from jadeite and the SG is lower (quartz is 2.65).

Calcite and onyx get carved and sold as white jade. Calcite is soft enough to scratch with a copper coin, and it fizzes under vinegar — a dead simple test. Onyx is harder but has a different feel and SG.

Assembled jade is particularly sneaky: a thin slice of real jade is glued over a cheaper stone or glass core. These pass visual tests but the seams are visible under a loupe, and the SG won't match.

The simplest rule: if the price seems too good for jade, it is too good. Real jade — even lower-grade nephrite — costs real money. A "jade" bangle for fifteen dollars is almost certainly not jade.

Step 10: Quick Decision Flowchart

Run through these steps in order and you'll narrow down what you're looking at.

If it scratches with a steel knife, it's not jade. That eliminates serpentine, glass, and calcite right away. If it doesn't scratch and feels heavy for its size, you might have jade. Now check translucency — hold it up to a strong light. If it's translucent with a granular structure under a loupe, you're looking at jadeite. If it's translucent with a tight felted fibrous structure, that's nephrite. If it's clearly fibrous and green with more obvious fibers, it's actinolite.

If you've run through all these tests and you're still unsure, take the stone to a gemologist. A refractive index test is definitive — jadeite has an RI of 1.654-1.667, nephrite sits at 1.606-1.632, and actinolite comes in around 1.614-1.641. These numbers don't overlap, so a professional refractometer settles the question in seconds.

Most of the time, though, the tests in this guide will tell you what you need to know. The scratch test alone catches the majority of fakes. Adding the cold test, the loupe inspection, and the sound test gives you enough information to make a confident judgment. Jade identification isn't magic — it's just paying attention to what the stone tells you.