Out of all the different dyes you can make in Minecraft, White Dye is the most plain. However, in regards to your base’s design, white can go with any color scheme. To make it, you only need common resources.
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What You Need to Make White Dye
The easiest way to make White Dye is from Bonemeal—which looks pretty similar and can be a bit confusing. Put Bonemeal by itself (or in a single stack) on any kind of crafting grid to get the same number of White Dye.
Alternatively, you can also use the Lily of the Valley flower to get White Dye in the same way. Simply place this white-petaled flower on any crafting grid to get some fresh dye.
How to Get Bonemeal
Although it’s possible to get Bonemeal from using Composters, it’s way easier and quicker to get Bonemeal from breaking down Bones. To get a bunch of Bones quickly, you should farm Skeleton mobs. These skinless foes are pretty common, so finding and defeating many of them won’t take long. Each Skeleton will drop 0 to 2 Bones upon death. To speed up the process of farming Skeletons (and other common mobs), you should consider making an XP farm.
You can also find potentially find Bones as drops from defeating less common mobs like Skeleton Horses and Strays, which both drop Bones at the same odds as Skeletons. Additionally, Bones can rarely be snagged while fishing (a 1% chance) or somewhat frequently found in Chests. Dungeons, Desert Temples, Jungle Temples, and Woodland Mansions all have around a 60% chance to have from 1 to 8 Bones in their Chests.
How to Find Lily of the Valley Flowers
These small white flowers don’t spawn everywhere. However, you can find them in the following kinds of biomes:
- Forests
- Birch Forests
- Dark Forests
- Flower Forests
It’s possible for you to force some Lilies of the Valley to spawn by using Bonemeal on some grassy Dirt blocks. Although, for the purposes of making White Dye, you’re better off using that Bonemeal to craft your White Dye instead of using it to spawn flowers.
The only other function of the Lily of the Valley flower is to make Suspicious Stews possess the Poison status effect. While this can be a neat trick to prank people with on multiplayer servers, its only real use is in getting specific Advancements.
Can Bonemeal Be Used Instead of White Dye?
You cannot use Bonemeal in place of White Dye for most recipes, even though they look very similar. There are some exceptions in the Bedrock Edition, such as when crafting other dyes from White Dye.
However, Bonemeal was once used for some of the same dying functions as White Dye in earlier versions of the game. White Dye was added into Minecraft with the 1.8.0 update in the Bedrock Edition of the game on December 11, 2018. The Java Edition of the game got White Dye in the 1.14 update that was released on April 23, 2019.
What White Dye is Used For
Your main reason for using White Dye is to make things lighter in color. Either by using specific crafting recipes or by using White Dye directly on items and mobs, you can give much of your surroundings a fresh look.
What You Can Directly Use White Dye On
- Using White Dye on Sheep will turn their wool white
- You can turn the collars of tamed Cats and Wolves white
- Using White Dye on placed blocks of Wool, Beds, Glass blocks, Terracotta blocks, and Shulker Boxes will turn them white
Other Dyes You Can Make With White Dye
In addition to being used as a dye itself, you can combine White Dye with other colors to create new dyes of lighter hues. Generously, the game will give you an equal number of dyes when you merge existing ones together. For example, combining 1 White Dye and 1 Black Dye will give you 2 Gray Dye. As such, you won’t need to worry about wasting resources.
- Black Dye and White Dye will make Gray Dye
- Gray Dye and White Dye will make Light Gray Dye
- Blue Dye and White Dye will make Light Blue Dye
- Green Dye and White Dye will make Lime Dye
- Red Dye and White Dye will make Pink Dye
- Blue Dye, Red Dye (x2), and White Dye will make Magenta Dye
Using White Dye in Crafting
While using White Dye directly on blocks can be convenient, it’s more efficient to craft items with White Dye to get more white-colored blocks with fewer resources. Here’s a breakdown of what you can combine with White Dye to turn it white on a crafting grid:
- Beds can be combined with White Dye to turn them into White Beds
- Candles can be combined with White Dye to turn them into White Candles
- When you’re making Concrete Powder, you can use White Dye to make White Concrete Powder
- When crafting different kinds of Fireworks, you can use White Dye to make them have white particle effects
- Shulker Boxes can be combined with White Dye to turn them into White Shulker Boxes
- Glass blocks can be combined with White Dye to turn them into White Stained Glass blocks
- Glass Panes can be combined with White Dye to turn them into White Stained Glass Panes
- Terracotta blocks can be combined with White Dye to them into White Stained Glass blocks
- Wool blocks can be combined with White Dye to turn them into White Wool blocks
