All 16 Color Dyes in Minecraft and How to Get Them

Building is one of the main aspects of playing Minecraft. It makes the game special and unique as the players are encouraged to create their own stories through builds. So, different block colors and textures are of utmost importance since they provide players with options and a chance to enhance the look of their house ideas in Minecraft. In many cases though, you are the one crafting the bright and colorful blocks, and you need dyes for them. So, in this guide, we have covered how you can get and craft every single dye in Minecraft.

Last updated on March 1, 2024, to make minor changes to the title and descriptions

How to Get Every Dye in Minecraft

In order to craft dyes in Minecraft, we will first need some ingredients. Thankfully, they are fairly straightforward to obtain. Besides all the specific ways to get each dye mentioned below, a wandering trader (one of the many Minecraft villager jobs) has a chance to sell three pieces of any dye for one emerald. That said, let’s look at how you can make every dye in Minecraft:

White Dye

White dye in Minecraft can be crafted using one bonemeal or one lily of the valley flower. You can also unearth white dye from a suspicious gravel block in trail ruins in Minecraft.

Lily of the Valley can easily be found in forest biomes, i.e. Woodland and Cherry Blossom Grove in Minecraft. As for bonemeal, you need to kill skeletons to get bones, which you can then place on a crafting table to get bonemeal.

Black Dye

For the black dye, you either need to obtain an ink sac by killing a squid or a wither rose to craft it. Squids spawn in rivers and oceans, so the fastest and easiest way to make black dye is using them.

Gray Dye

Gray dye in Minecraft can be obtained through combining black dye and white dye. You get two gray dye with this crafting recipe. The Bedrock Edition also lets you buy gray dye from Wandering traders in exchange for emeralds.

Light Gray Dye

You can craft light gray dye from flowers such as azure bluet, oxeye daisy,or white tulip. The azure bluets generate in most grassy biomes, whereas the other flowers generate in all flower forest biome. Placing one gray dye and a white dye or one black dye and two white dyes in the crafting table will also produce light gray dye.

Brown Dye

You can turn cocoa beans into brown dye. Cocoa beans only generate on the logs of jungle trees in jungle biomes in Minecraft.

Red Dye

You can craft red dye using a poppy, red tulip, beetroot or a rose bush in Minecraft. Poppies generate in most grassy areas, whereas red tulip and rose bushes appear in the flower forests. If you are lucky, you will find beetroot growing in a village farm. Wool in Minecraft or concrete of this color are usually used in marking specific areas or planning builds in Minecraft.

Yellow Dye

You can craft this dye from a dandelion or a sunflower in a crafting grid. You can also find it in a mason’s chest in villages or dig it out of a suspicious gravel block in trail ruins. Dandelions are fairly common and generate in many biomes, while sunflowers generate in sunflower plains biomes.

Orange Dye

You can break down an orange tulip or a torchflower in Minecraft to get orange dye. In addition, combining a red and a yellow dye in the crafting UI produces orange dye. Moreover, you can get this item from a suspicious gravel block in trail ruins in Minecraft.

Orange tulips, similarly to all the tulips in Minecraft, generate in flower forest biomes. Torchflower can only be obtained through a sniffer in Minecraft, so make sure to check out that guide.

Green Dye

You can craft green dye in Minecraft by cooking a cactus in a furnace or in a chest in a desert village house. Cacti commonly generate in deserts and badlands biomes.

Lime Dye

You can get lime dye by combining green dye and white dye in a crafting interface or by smelting a sea pickle in a furnace. Sea pickles generate at the bottom of warm oceans, usually on top of coral blocks.

Blue Dye

With a cornflower or a piece of lapis lazuli, you can craft blue dye in Minecraft. It can also be found in trail ruins in the game. Cornflowers generate in plains biomes, meadows, and flower forests. You can easily find lapis ores while exploring caves or branch mining even in the diamond levels. Moreover, apprentice-level cleric villagers sell one lapis lazuli for an emerald.

Cyan Dye

You can get cyan dye by combining green and blue dyes in a crafting grid or breaking down a pitcher plant. Wool of this and next two colors can be found in the Ancient cities in Minecraft. Furthermore, pitcher plant can be obtained through the sniffer, similarly to the torchflower.

Light Blue Dye

If you break down a blue orchid or combine blue dye and white dye, you will get light blue dye. Furthermore, this dye can be unearthed in trail ruins. Blue orchids commonly generate in swamp biomes.

Purple Dye

You can only craft purple dye from blue and red dyes. Simply combine the two on a crafting table, and you are good to go.

Pink Dye

You can break down a peony, pink tulip, or pink petals to get the pink dye. Combining a red dye and a white dye produces the same dye, as well. Peony and pink tulips generate in flower forests and pink petals cover the grass in Cherry Grove biomes.

Magenta Dye

You can get magenta dye by breaking down an allium or lilac in a crafting grid. Alliums generate in the flower forests and meadows, whereas lilacs appear in forest biomes.

Also, combining purple and pink dyes, or blue, red, and pink dyes, or blue, two red dyes, and a white dye produces this dye.

Uses of Dyes in Minecraft

You guessed it, you can use dyes to color different items, blocks, and even mobs in Minecraft. Similarly to the real world, colors bring beauty and diversity to Minecraft worlds. They allow us to draw attention to certain locations, blend builds with the environment and experiment with contrast rules. Here are all the uses for dyes in Minecraft.

Dying Items, Blocks, and Mobs

• Dying Wool – If you would like to learn more about how to dye wool in Minecraft, check out our linked guide.
• Dying Sheep – You can directly dye sheep’s wool any color you want, so you don’t need to waste too many dyes.

• Dying Terracotta – Combining one dye and eight regular terracotta blocks in a crafting table produces eight colored terracotta blocks.

• Staining Glass – Combining one dye and eight glass or glass pane blocks in a crafting table produces eight colored glass or glass pane blocks. You can use these colored glass with beacons in Minecraft.

• Dying Armor – You have an ability to dye leather armor different colors. Though, dying armor is slightly different on Java and Bedrock Editions. If you want to learn more about dying leather armor, check out our guide on customizing armor in Minecraft.
  
• Creating Other Dyes – As we mentioned above, you can get certain dyes only through combining two or more dyes.
  
• Dying Firework Stars – Firework stars are crafting ingredient for fireworks with explosions. You can craft them with 1-8 dyes, so the fireworks become very colorful.
  
• Dying Banner Pattern Designs – Using a loom, you can create awesome-looking banner designs of chosen colors.

• Dying Shulker Boxes – Combine a shulker box and a dye in a crafting grid to color it and therefore, organize your storage better.
  
• Crafting Concrete Powder – Unlike other colored blocks that have the regular variant with a neutral color, concrete does not. So, you actually need a dye to create any concrete powder blocks. You also cannot change the color later.

• Dying beds – Since Minecraft 1.20, we can dye any bed in Minecraft, colored or white, any color we want.

• Dying candles – Place one regular candle and a dye in a crafting grid to change the color of the candle.

Coloring Signs

Every sign or hanging sign in Minecraft has default black colored text. This is fine for the bright types of wood, but it’s not well visible on the darker ones. This is why we use dyes to color the text on signs and make them more noticeable. Furthermore, you can use glow squid ink to increase the brightness of the text and make it stand out.

Trading

Apart from coloring a variety of blocks and items, you can also trade dyes for emeralds. Shepherd villagers at apprentice, journeyman and expert levels have a chance to sell any of the 16 dyes (12 pieces) for a single emerald. So, if you have already built an iron farm in Minecraft and have no better use for poppies, you can trade them and earn emeralds. Workstation for this Minecraft villager job is a loom.