Jade is an ornamental stone often used for delicate and highly detailed carvings. The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals; Nephrite and Jadeite. Jadeite has about the same hardness as quartz while nephrite is somewhat softer. Nephrite can be found in a creamy white form as well as in a variety of green colours whereas jadeite shows more colour variations including blue lavender-mauve pink and emerald-green colours. Of the two jadeite is rarer.