Minecraft has 16 dyes: most come from a single flower in the crafting grid, green dye from smelting a cactus in a furnace, black dye from an ink sac or a wither rose, and white dye from bone meal or a lily of the valley. Brown dye has a single recipe, cocoa beans, and so does purple, blue mixed with red, while any of the 16 can turn up at the Wandering Trader, three for an emerald. Every recipe below is read from the Java Edition 26.3 game files, and each dye has its own page in our crafting recipes.
All 16 dyes and where they come from
One item in the crafting grid gives one dye, or two where the table says so. Green and lime dye are smelted in a furnace instead.
| Dye |
Sources |
| White Dye |
Bone Meal, Lily of the Valley |
| Light Gray Dye |
Azure Bluet, Oxeye Daisy, White Tulip; or mix Black + White + White (3), Gray + White (2) |
| Gray Dye |
Closed Eyeblossom; or mix Black + White (2) |
| Black Dye |
Ink Sac, Wither Rose |
| Brown Dye |
Cocoa Beans, the only source |
| Red Dye |
Poppy, Red Tulip, Beetroot, Rose Bush (2 dyes) |
| Orange Dye |
Orange Tulip, Torchflower, Open Eyeblossom; or mix Red + Yellow (2) |
| Yellow Dye |
Dandelion, Wildflowers, Golden Dandelion, Sunflower (2 dyes) |
| Lime Dye |
Sea Pickle in a furnace; or mix Green + White (2) |
| Green Dye |
Cactus in a furnace, the only recipe |
| Cyan Dye |
Pitcher Plant (2 dyes); or mix Blue + Green (2) |
| Light Blue Dye |
Blue Orchid; or mix Blue + White (2) |
| Blue Dye |
Lapis Lazuli, Cornflower |
| Purple Dye |
Only by mixing Blue + Red (2) |
| Magenta Dye |
Allium, Lilac (2 dyes); or mix Purple + Pink (2), Blue + Red + Pink (3), Blue + Red + Red + White (4) |
| Pink Dye |
Pink Tulip, Pink Petals, Cactus Flower, Peony (2 dyes); or mix Red + White (2) |
Where the ingredients are:
- Flowers: poppies and dandelions grow in most grassy biomes; tulips, azure bluets, oxeye daisies and cornflowers on plains; lilies of the valley, lilacs, rose bushes and peonies in forests; alliums and wildflowers in meadows; blue orchids in swamps; sunflowers on sunflower plains; pink petals in cherry groves; eyeblossoms in the Pale Garden, open at night and closed by day; cactus flowers on the cacti of deserts and badlands.
- Torchflowers and pitcher plants grow from the seeds and pods that sniffers dig up.
- Ink sacs drop from squids in rivers and oceans, one to three each, more with Looting.
- Wither roses appear where the Wither kills a mob.
- Bone meal: one bone makes three. Skeletons drop up to two bones each, a bone block crafts into nine bone meal, and a full composter gives one.
- Cocoa beans grow in pods on jungle trees, three per ripe pod.
- Lapis lazuli comes from lapis ore, four to nine per block, more with Fortune.
- Sea pickles grow on the coral reefs of warm oceans, and cacti in deserts and badlands.
Our seed map shows every biome of a Java world, so you can find the nearest flower forest, swamp, jungle, cherry grove or Pale Garden before you set out. Outside recipes, the Wandering Trader can sell any of the 16 dyes, and exploring turns some up: green dye in the chests of desert village houses, yellow dye in village masons' chests, and white, yellow, orange, light blue or blue dye in the suspicious gravel of trail ruins.
Green, black and white dye, step by step
Green dye, the most searched:
- Find a cactus in a desert or badlands and break it by hand: it drops itself.
- Place a furnace, put the cactus in the top slot and fuel such as coal in the bottom one.
- Each cactus turns into one green dye in ten seconds, with a point of experience.
Plant a cactus on sand to grow more: it grows up to three blocks tall on its own, and sometimes grows a cactus flower on top instead, which makes pink dye. Without a cactus, there is no recipe: blue and yellow do not mix into green, and sea pickles smelt into lime dye. The Wandering Trader may sell green dye, or a cactus for three emeralds to start a farm, and desert village houses sometimes keep green dye in their chests.
Black dye:
- Find squids in a river or an ocean: each drops one to three ink sacs.
- Put one ink sac in the crafting grid for one black dye.
A wither rose also gives one black dye. Coal and charcoal do not make black dye, and the glow ink sac from glow squids is not a dye at all.
White dye:
- Collect bones from skeletons, or bone blocks from fossils.
- Craft each bone into three bone meal, or each bone block into nine.
- Put one bone meal in the crafting grid for one white dye.
A lily of the valley, found in forests and flower forests, also gives one white dye. A composter turns seeds, leaves and other plants into bone meal, one each time it fills up.
Mixing dyes: every recipe
| Mix in the crafting grid |
Result |
| Red + Yellow |
2 Orange Dye |
| Red + White |
2 Pink Dye |
| Blue + Red |
2 Purple Dye |
| Blue + White |
2 Light Blue Dye |
| Blue + Green |
2 Cyan Dye |
| Green + White |
2 Lime Dye |
| Black + White |
2 Gray Dye |
| Gray + White |
2 Light Gray Dye |
| Black + White + White |
3 Light Gray Dye |
| Purple + Pink |
2 Magenta Dye |
| Blue + Red + Pink |
3 Magenta Dye |
| Blue + Red + Red + White |
4 Magenta Dye |
The dyes can go anywhere in the grid, and every mix gives as many dyes as it takes, so mixing never wastes any. Seven colors have no mix at all: white, black, brown, red, yellow, blue and green come only from their own ingredients.
The best renewable source for each color
Bone meal drives most dye farms, and the rest comes from a few farms and one trader:
- Yellow, magenta, red and pink: tall flowers. Bone meal on a sunflower, lilac, rose bush or peony drops a copy without using up the plant, and each copy makes two dyes: one bone meal, two dyes.
- Eight colors from a flower forest. Bone meal on its grass grows its eleven small flowers, which give white, light gray, red, orange, yellow, magenta, pink and blue dye. In a swamp, the same trick grows blue orchids for light blue.
- Green and lime: the furnace. A cactus farm feeds green dye, and sea pickles give lime.
- Brown: cocoa. Plant cocoa beans on jungle logs; each ripe pod gives three.
- Black: squids, which keep spawning in rivers and oceans. White: bone meal, from a skeleton farm or composters fed with crops.
- Purple, cyan, gray and light blue: mixing. Blue from lapis lazuli or cornflowers, with red, green, black or white, is the steady route.
- Any color: the Wandering Trader. In Java 26.3 he sells each dye three for an emerald, up to 12 times per trader. Five of his offers are drawn from 78 common ones, 16 of which are dyes, so the color you want comes down to luck; his full list is on our Wandering Trader page.
Dyes you have too many of can be sold: a Shepherd may buy 12 of one color for an emerald, if one of its random offers asks for that color.
What you can dye in 26.3, and how to wash it off
| Item |
How to dye it |
Change the color later? |
| Wool, Carpet, Bed |
One dye with one item in the crafting grid |
Yes, from any color |
| Wool Slab, Wool Stairs, Cushion (new in 26.3) |
One dye with one item |
Yes, from any color |
| Harness, Bundle |
One dye with one item |
Yes, from any color |
| Shulker Box |
One dye with one box |
Yes, and a water cauldron washes it |
| Candle |
One dye with one plain candle |
No |
| Glass, Glass Pane, Terracotta |
Eight around one dye, for eight |
No |
| Concrete Powder |
One dye, four sand and four gravel, for eight |
No |
| Leather armor, Leather Horse Armor, Wolf Armor |
Java: in the crafting grid, where several dyes blend into one color; Bedrock: in a cauldron of dyed water |
Yes, and a water cauldron washes it |
| Banner |
One dye per pattern on a loom |
A water cauldron removes the last pattern |
Dye also works in the world. Use it on a sheep to color it for good: every shearing then gives one to three wool of that color, so a single dye keeps paying. It also recolors a tamed wolf's or cat's collar and the text of a sign, and it colors firework stars. The concrete stairs and slabs added in 26.3 cannot be dyed: they are made from concrete that already has its color.
To wash dye off, use the item on a cauldron of plain water; each wash uses one level of water. It works on leather armor, leather horse armor, wolf armor and shulker boxes, and takes the top pattern off a banner. Everything else changes color with a new dye instead, and candles, glass, terracotta and concrete keep their first color.
Is the golden dandelion worth it for yellow dye?
No. A golden dandelion costs eight gold nuggets around a dandelion and crafts back into a single yellow dye, the same one dye the dandelion gives on its own. It came with the Tiny Takeover drop (Java 26.1, March 24, 2026) for another job: use it on a baby mob to stop it from growing up, and again to let it grow, though not on baby villagers or undead babies. Turning it into dye only makes sense for one you no longer need.
Java and Bedrock: what changes
Bedrock Edition gets its dyes from the same flowers, farms and mixes, with a few differences worth knowing:
- Four ingredients work as dyes. Bone meal, ink sacs, lapis lazuli and cocoa beans can generally be used directly as white, black, blue and brown dye, without crafting them into dye first.
- Armor is dyed in a cauldron. Leather armor, leather horse armor and wolf armor take their color from a cauldron of dyed water: add dye to the water, then use the armor on it. On Java, they are dyed in the crafting grid.
- Bone meal multiplies small flowers. On Bedrock, bone meal on a one-block flower grows more of the same flower around it, so every flower can be farmed. On Java, small flowers do not respond: bone meal works on tall flowers, pink petals and wildflowers, and grows new flowers on grass.
- Shulkers can be dyed. On Bedrock, dye works on a shulker, the mob, as well as on shulker boxes.
Every dye and every item it colors has its own page in our crafting recipes. The cushions, stairs and slabs of 26.3 are covered in our Minecraft 26.3 recipes guide, and our villager trades guide lists everything else the Wandering Trader and the shepherds offer.
