4 ms·

You can make natural purple dyes with ammonia and some lichens. Smashing up and boiling rare snails sounds like ass compared to that. https://www.youtube.com/w

• adrian_b 3y ago
  Purple dyes can be made easily from many natural sources. Nevertheless, none of those has the lightfastness and the permanence of the pigment extracted from snails, which were the reasons for its very high value in the antiquity. After Tyrian purple, the blue dyes from indigo or woad are the next best in lightfastness, and then some of the red dyes. Most natural dyes fade rather quickly, so in antiquity it was usual to dye again the expensive garments from time to time, not only to wash them. Now it is possible to synthesize the pigments that compose the Tyrian purple, but the process is much more expensive than for the cheap purple synthetic dyes that are commonly used.