Purple has long been associated with royalty, spirituality, and mystery. Thousands of centuries before Christ, the only way to achieve the color violet, was the long and difficult process of extracting the glandular juices of a sea snail (found only along the coast of what is now modern day Lebanon) and exposing the fluids to sunlight until the desired shade appeared. It was called Tyrian Purple, and was very expensive; only kings, queens, emperors, and holy higher-ups could afford to dress themselves in Tyrian-dyed fabric. During the Elizabethan era, Queen Elizabeth I actually created a law forbidding anyone but her and close relatives to wear purple, to preserve and distinguish their royal status. (Think, Mean Girls movie where, “On Wednesdays we wear pink!”). In the mid-1800’s, purple finally became accessible to lower classes by accident, when a young English chemist, William Henry Perkin, created a synthetic purple while trying to extract compounds from the malaria drug, quinine. He patented the dye and made a fortune.