Dye

Dye is a type of item used to change the color of other items. Dye comes in vials that can be stacked, sold to merchants or dye traders, and traded between players. Dye comes in the following colors:

Usage
To color an item with dye, double-click the vial, then click on the item you wish to dye. This brings up the dye preview window, which shows you how the item would look after being colored. You can then drag additional dyes (up to four total) into the slots in the preview window, which allows more variations in color; you must mix at least two different colors (e.g. two purples with a blue, but not two purples alone). When you are satisfied with your dye combination, click Apply to finalize it or Cancel to close the window, without losing any of the dyes.

Scope
Only four types of items can be dyed:
 * Armor can be dyed, except for:
 * Elementalist and Paragon headgear
 * Destroyer, Glacial, and Stone Gauntlets
 * Common armor spectacles
 * Hero armor
 * Weapons (including offhands) can be dyed. However:
 * Some skins will accept dye, but it affects no visible area.
 * On other skins, the dye affects only a tiny portion of the item.
 * Only two unique weapons accept dye: Straw Effigy and Traveler's Bo Staff.
 * Containers can be dyed with a single color; you cannot preview results or mix colors. There is also no visible difference outside of the inventory panel.
 * You cannot dye Charr Bags or Zehtuka's Packs, the two unique containers.
 * Costumes can be dyed, except for most festival hats.

Acquisition and trade
Vials of dye drop randomly from most foes. It can also be bought or sold at market prices by visiting a dye trader, located in towns or well-stocked guild halls. All dyes have a merchant value of 1 and a trader minimum of 10 (except as noted below), but in-game values fluctuate considerably; be sure to get price checks before trading with other players &mdash; a common scam in pre-searing Ascalon is to buy black and other high-demand dyes from new players, who are unaware of the market values.

Exceptions

 * Gray dye is available from merchants for 50 (or faction merchants for 40).
 * Pink dye could only be purchased for 100 from Rosa Salvitas during Pink Day in LA.
 * Unlike other dyes, vials of pink dye cannot be traded to other players or dye traders, but can be sold to merchants for 50.
 * Players owning pink vials can dye items (including armor) for others.

Quests
Dye is also a reward for completing certain quests:


 * To Dye For (Istan) rewards a random color;
 * The Knights Who Say Nian (Canthan New Year) rewards a vial of red dye.

Trivia

 * The dye system was completely revamped on Friday, October 27, 2006:
 * Dye Remover (which reset an item back to its default base color) was replaced with gray dye.
 * White and brown dyes were added.
 * The Dye Preview window was added.
 * Color mixing now takes place in the preview window, whereas before the dyes were combined directly to create Mixed Dye, which could be applied to an item.
 * The inventory icon appearance of dyes changed.
 * Armor that had been crafted without dye was changed to appear as if dyed gray.
 * Before this, items instead started with default colors. (You can still see these default colors whenever dye takes a moment to render, such as on a low-end machine. This reveals how dye is rendered: a color-cast is put over the underlying textures, which were never in fact changed.)
 * In another update, all vials were renamed from " Dye" to "Vial of Dye []". Some languages (e.g. German) already used this naming system.
 * The 15 October 2010 update added Rosa Salvitas to Lion's Arch; she remained throughout the month of October selling pink dye to players in support of Pink Day in LA.