Dye

Dye Crafting Production Chain

Wool dyes are items used to change the color of wool. They were added in the Beta 1.2 update. There are currently 16 dyes, including seven "primary" dyes (red, yellow, blue, green, white, black and brown), seven "secondary" dyes, and two "tertiary" dyes.

Uses

Dyes can be placed with wool on a crafting table (in any position) to dye a single block. It can also be used on sheep to paint them. After shearing, the wool dropped will be of the painted colour as well, sometimes yielding more coloured wool than from crafting (see Notes section). After shearing colored sheep, they will not regrow their wool. Additionally, there are naturally occurring gray, light gray, black, brown and pink sheep that drop corresponding colour wool as well. Note, that you can only dye white wool via crafting – painting coloured sheep is the only way to dye non-white wool. For example, you can get "bleached" wool by using white dye on a coloured sheep.

Primary Colors

These primary dyes (with the exception of cocoa beans) are created from a single ingredient spawned naturally in a world.

Name	Source	Color	Notes
Rose Red	Rose	Red	Made by placing a rose on a crafting table
Dandelion Yellow	Dandelion	Yellow	Made by placing a dandelion on a crafting table
Lapis Lazuli	Lapis Lazuli Ore	Blue	One lapis lazuli ore gives 4-8 lapis lazuli
Cactus Green	Cactus	Green	Cook the cactus in a furnace to get the dye
Ink Sac	Dropped by Squid	Black	Black wool is also obtained from Black Sheep
Bone Meal	Bone	White	Bones are dropped by Skeletons
Cocoa Beans	Dungeons	Brown	Can be found in dungeons. Brown wool can also be obtained from brown Sheep.

Secondary Colors

Secondary dyes are created by combining primary dyes together.

Name	Source	Color	Notes
Orange Dye	Rose Red + Dandelion Yellow	Orange
Cyan Dye	Cactus Green + Lapis Lazuli	Cyan
Purple Dye	Rose Red + Lapis Lazuli	Purple
Gray Dye	Bone Meal + Ink Sac	Gray	Gray wool can also be obtained from Gray Sheep
Light Blue Dye	Bone Meal + Lapis Lazuli	Light Blue
Pink Dye	Bone Meal + Rose Red	Pink	Pink wool can also be obtained from Pink Sheep
Lime Dye	Cactus Green + Bone Meal	Lime Green

Tertiary Colors

Tertiary dyes are created by combining least one secondary dye. Magenta and light gray are currently the only tertiary dyes available.

Name	Source	Color	Notes
Magenta Dye	Purple Dye + Pink Dye	Magenta	An alternate crafting recipe is Rose Red x2 + Bone Meal + Lapis Lazuli. (As in, the constituents of Purple and Pink Dyes.)
Light Gray Dye	Bone Meal + Gray Dye	Light Gray	An alternate crafting recipe is Bone Meal x2 + Ink Sac. Light Gray wool can also obtained from Light Gray Sheep.

Notes

If you are looking to make Wool dyed a certain color, it is better to dye a sheep the desired color and get the colored wool directly from the sheep. This method gives you the sheep's drop of 1-4 colored wool blocks per dye, instead of only one dyed block from using crafting wool with dye. You can also dye non-white sheep, which would otherwise yield permanently dyed wool of a different color.

These colors of wool naturally occur on sheep; all others must be created by using dye on a sheep (right-click):

White sheep (the most common)
Light gray sheep
Dark gray sheep
Black sheep
Brown sheep
Pink sheep

Data Values

The color of a dye item depends on a secondary data field (beyond the item ID of 254), which is also used to store the damage for tools and so is commonly referred to as a “damage value”.

Dec	Hex	Description
0	0x0	Ink Sac
1	0x1	Rose Red
2	0x2	Cactus Green
3	0x3	Cocoa Beans
4	0x4	Lapis Lazuli
5	0x5	Purple Dye
6	0x6	Cyan Dye
7	0x7	Light Gray Dye
8	0x8	Gray Dye
9	0x9	Pink Dye
10	0xA	Lime Dye
11	0xB	Dandelion Yellow
12	0xC	Light Blue Dye
13	0xD	Magenta Dye
14	0xE	Orange Dye
15	0xF	Bone Meal

Trivia

The reversed color values closely resemble an ANSI or VGA palette with the biggest outlier being Orange.
The metadata values for the Wool and Wool Dyes are the inverse of each other, with White Wool having 0, Bone Meal 15; Orange Wool having 2, Orange Dye 14; etc.
Giving yourself a dye with damage value bigger than or equal to 16, will be in result of it looking like a random item, at first it looks like a wooden tool. Moving the mouse over it to get the tooltip will crash the game.

Dye

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