Insider Business
Published 21 Jan 2023Making authentic Tyrian purple dye starts with extracting a murex snail gland. After a series of painstaking steps, Tunisian dye maker Mohamed Ghassen Nouira turns as much as 45 kilograms of snails into a single gram of pure Tyrian purple extract. When he’s done, he can sell it for $2,700. Some retailers sell a gram of the pigment for over $3,000. In comparison, 5 grams of synthetic Tyrian purple costs under $4.
So, why is real Tyrian purple so hard to make? And is that why it’s so expensive?
Mohamed Ghassen Nouira’s website: https://www.argamanou.com/
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From the comments:
@ghassennouira2301
8 months agoAgain thanks for your nice comments and God have mercy on those who keep accusing without having a single clue about my actual dyeing work or intentions!
I hope this message gets to most viewers since l am not going to spend my time justifying my actions to people who aren’t even ready to listen!
Again, more than 90% of the Murex l use are naturally trapped in fishermen nets and that are otherwise either consumed by the fishermen themselves or sold to local seafood restaurants so basically most of the Murex l am using are not caught specifically for dyeing purposes exception made of the small portion caught by the divers.
On the other hands and as mentioned earlier, l respect the seasons and sort the snails by size before processing them. Moreover, l naturally consume these mollusks like so many Tunisians l just make sure not to waste the dye. Also all the other parts of the snail are recycled, shells are turned into lime, opercula as incense fixative and even the guts are processed into garum while hundreds of thousands of tons of other marine creatures are harvested every year in the whole world for meat consumption only while the rest of the creature is dumped and nobody seems to care!!
My work extends over 15 years and no harm has ever been caused to the local Murex which is more abundant than ever here!
Let me remind those who are appalled by the use of a natural ingredient to produce a colorant and prefer replicating it chemically that synthetic dyeing is the world’s most polluting industry harming millions of living beings every year so l wonder who the real assassins are!
Finally you can continue calling me names such killer, murderer, psycho, criminal or whatever your mind dictates to you to say without even making the effort to dig further and learn more about my work l honestly don’t care because l have total peace of mind about what l am doing and l will definitely not spend my life justifying my actions to people who’s only concern is to accuse others without even listening to the other side.
Keep in mind that prejudice is ignorance so may God lead us all to the light!
A big thanks again to all the supporters from all over the world 🌎
