Crimson Desert Dyes, Barber and Wardrobe: Change Your Look

There is no transmog, so dye is the whole game

I read every patch note Pearl Abyss has published, from 1.00.02 on March 19 to 2.03.02 on September 23. None of them adds an appearance slot, or any way to wear one item's look over another item's stats. What Kliff looks like is what Kliff is wearing: the same pieces whose Defense numbers our armor guide walks through.

So the look comes from four tools: dyes, the barber, a set of display settings that hide your helmet and weapons, and the Wardrobe that stores what you are not wearing. Pearl Abyss has added to or fixed all four since launch, which is why a launch-week guide to any of them can be out of date.

This guide is current to 2.03.02. Charting the Unknown launches October 29, 2026 at 22:00 UTC, and Pearl Abyss says it will publish patch notes on the day. Check those notes for new dyes, dyers or outfits.

Naira's quest is the dye tutorial

VGC notes you can dye at Theoric's dyehouse in Hernand almost from the start, but the tutorial is a Greymanes faction quest. Game8's walkthrough files Brightening the Spirits under the Scattered Embers line, started by talking to Naira at the Howling Hill camp:

1. Gloomy Gray. Ride with Naira to Hernand Farmland, where she hands you the materials for a dye.
2. Vibrant Dye. Go to the Cauldron in the Alchemy Lab in the City of Hernand, near the Tannery, open the Dye tab and make a Bright Red Dye. Then use it from your inventory to learn its colours.
3. A Fresh Color. Back at the Hernand Farmland dyehouse, dye a piece of gear, then report to Naira.

The reward is one Grey Dye. Play it as Kliff. Pearl Abyss's Known Issues notice, last revised September 21, still lists "Greymane faction quests cannot be progressed while playing as Damiane or Oongka." Our known issues guide tracks that bug.

How a colour actually unlocks

Two steps, and skipping either one leaves a colour missing.

• Use the bottle. Owning a dye does nothing. Game8 says you "won't be able to apply the dye to your equipment without using it first," and Console Pulse adds that buying or crafting a bottle without using it "does not register the color."
• Meet the family's dyer. Each regional dyehouse works in one colour family. Per Console Pulse and Vulkk, a colour you have learned only becomes usable at the dyehouse for its family, or at the camp dyer once you have spoken to that family's regional dyer.

Console Pulse counts 60 named dyes: 10 colour families with 5 shades each (50 craftable bottles), plus 10 greyscale bottles that cannot be crafted. Vulkk describes how the shades map onto the dye grid. Each family has 10 rows of shades, and each bottle opens two adjacent rows: Bright rows 1 and 2, Rich 3 and 4, the plain name 5 and 6, Dark 7 and 8, Deep 9 and 10.

Bottles come from dyers and some Provisioner's Shops, from quest rewards such as Naira's, from the Cauldron, and from people's houses. Taking one from a house is theft, and stealing needs a Mask. Our crime and bounty guide covers that. Patch 1.10.00 (June 5) also added a "Dye Colors" entry under Journal > Knowledge > Gatherables.

Brewing your own: one base, five shades

Dyes are made at a Cauldron, not a cooking pot (VGC). Every craftable dye is a family base plus a beetle mix that sets the shade. Longhorn Beetles push it lighter and Stag Beetles push it darker:

Console Pulse and Vulkk give the same modifier table, and Fextralife's five red recipes match it exactly. Bright Red is 10 Peony + 3 Rhinoceros Beetles + 3 Longhorn Beetles; Deep Red swaps the Longhorns for 3 Stag Beetles. A full family therefore costs its base five times over, plus 7 Longhorn and 7 Stag Beetles.

The family bases, per Console Pulse's table (updated September 26):

Vulkk's April table differs on three of those rows (Purple, Sky Blue and Teal); see the disagreements section below. If you don't know a formula, the Cauldron's Improvise option lets you enter ingredients by hand. Console Pulse warns that a failed combination still consumes them, so check the tables before you experiment.

The ten regional dyers

Each family has one regional dyer. VGC says to look for them on the outskirts of towns, near brightly coloured fabric hung out to dry. Console Pulse's list, last updated September 26:

Vulkk adds that each regional dyer has exactly one alternative material on hand, which changes a part's texture and shine as well as its colour.

Visiting them counts toward Rainbow Mane

Talking to dyers also feeds a challenge. PowerPyx gives Rainbow Mane's requirement as "Learn Theoric, Monty, Pororin, Castiel, Laurick, Alton, and Cromac's dyeing techniques." That is seven names against ten dyers. You do not need to buy anything, and PowerPyx says visits made before you unlocked it count. The reward is an Abyss Artifact, a Faded Abyss Artifact and a Solidarity II.

Rainbow Mane is one of the five Trade challenges behind The Golden Merchant achievement (see our achievements guide). Steam's global stats showed it at 0.5% of players on October 25. The trading guide has its Sealed Abyss Artifact location, and per PowerPyx your dyer visits still count if you find it late.

Oliver brings your colours back to camp

Running between ten dyehouses is a mid-game problem with a camp solution. Oliver, a Greymane dyer, sets up at Howling Hill. Console Pulse and Vulkk gate him behind the camp's third expansion plus the faction quest A Rumor at the Inksworth Bindery. Nerdschalk puts that quest in the Solid Foundation line, which opens once Embers of Return and Gathered Will are complete, and adds that Oliver only works properly after you also finish the Greymane Commissions quests for Oliver, Connor and Eric. Fandom's Inksworth Bindery page says those three missing Greymanes stop near the bindery on their way to the camp. Our comrades guide explains how rumor quests work, and camp expansions are in the camp guide. Do it as Kliff, for the same Known Issues reason as above.

What Oliver does, per Console Pulse and Vulkk:

• Every family you have met. He can use any colour family whose regional dyer you have spoken to. He cannot use one you haven't, even if you have learned its bottles.
• Every material you have found, rather than one per shop (Vulkk).
• Shadow Grey, one of the greyscale dyes (Console Pulse).

At any dyehouse you pick a piece, then work through its separate dye zones one at a time: colour, material finish and, per both guides, a wear or weathering level. Pearl Abyss's 1.05.00 (May 2) made the dyeable parts easier to see while dyeing. Dyeing is paid. Game8's how-to ends with "pay the necessary amount," and 1.06.00 (May 11) added a readout of the currency you are carrying to both the Character Customization and Dye menus. None of the sources I read prints what a dye job costs.

White, black and the greys cannot be brewed

The ten greyscale bottles do not use the Cauldron formula. Console Pulse's list:

Game8 gives the white route in full. Pure White Dye is sold by Wilmer at the Provisioner's Shop in Timberton, southwest of the City of Delesyia, for 15 Silver. His shop opens once you finish the Blackwater Oil Merchant Guild faction questline, which Cordelia in Timberton gives. Console Pulse singles out Black and Pure White as the two most often mistaken for craftable: "No flower-and-beetle combination replaces their vendor unlocks."

What you can dye, patch by patch

The list of dyeable gear has grown since launch. The patch trail:

The 1.13.00 line doubles as a rule of thumb: if a piece will not show in the Dye UI, it cannot be dyed. Pearl Abyss's March 16 notice for the launch Twitch Drops said those rewards "cannot be dyed." The October 22 notice for the Charting the Unknown Drops says nothing either way.

The barber: hair, beards and tattoos

Per Game8 and VGC, the camp barber is a Greymane named Eric. He changes hairstyle and hair colour, eyebrows, and face and body tattoos with their ink colour for all three playable characters. Beards are for Kliff and Oongka. Game8 notes that Damiane has no beard category. ItemLevel says you switch to a character before customizing them. Which quest brings Eric is disputed, so it is in the disagreements table.

The barber's own patch trail, from Pearl Abyss's notes:

• 1.04.00 (April 23): 13 new tattoos.
• 1.05.00 (May 2): awkward Oongka hairstyles fixed; Damiane no longer bobs up and down in the preview "at a barber or tailor's shop."
• 1.06.00 (May 11): a Headgear On/Off option now shows on the Body Tattoo screen, and Damiane's and Oongka's tattoos no longer vanish after reloading.
• 1.08.00 (May 22): on keyboard and mouse, hovering over a style previews it.
• 1.10.00 (June 5): certain tattoo patterns not displaying fixed.

Hiding your helmet, weapons and sheath

A shield and a bow on your back sit over your cloak, as in the shot above. Four settings, all added after launch, control what shows:

Pearl Abyss put the headgear option under Settings > Language & Gameplay and the weapon options under Others > Language & Gameplay. Its later notices name separate Gameplay and Language and Audio tabs, so check Gameplay first. Later notes also call the helmet option "Display Headgear." The fixes since:

• 1.07.00 (May 15): a two-handed sword's sheath no longer shows on Selected Only while you carry a one-handed sword and shield.
• 2.01.00 (September 4): the headgear no longer flashes into view during weapon enhancement on Show in Combat, and sheaths no longer appear for swords you have not equipped.

Who can wear whose outfits

Four patches have widened who can wear what:

Oongka can now wear most of Kliff's outfits, and Kliff some of Oongka's. Damiane's access comes as named lists. No patch line I found opens Kliff's general outfit pool to her. 1.13.00 also added 39 pieces for Kliff and Oongka and 8 armour pieces for Damiane. Pearl Abyss's August 12 highlights counted 70 new outfits, equipment and items across the 17 patches to that date.

Wardrobes hold up to 1,000 pieces

Pearl Abyss's April 9 Dev Update promised a Wardrobe for headgear, armour, gloves, footwear and cloaks, and 1.04.00 (April 23) shipped it:

• It is a piece of furniture, bought from furniture shops and placed in housing mode.
• Each Wardrobe holds 100 outfit slots, and capacity grows with every Wardrobe you place, up to 1,000.
• 1.16.00 (August 1) fixed Damiane's controls locking up when she opened a specific wardrobe.

Placing it needs the house's decoration mode. That opens through Luke's Request, a Greymanes faction quest that Fextralife says needs Kliff. Our housing guide walks through it. Don't confuse the Wardrobe with your general private storage. 1.02.00 raised that to as many as 1,000 slots, depending on the camp's expansion level.

Where the guides disagree

The practical read: the barber and dyer candidates are all Greymanes reached through the camp's faction quests, and both candidate barber quests sit in the Solid Foundation line (Game8, Nerdschalk). Push that line as Kliff alongside the camp expansions and both tents turn up. On the recipes, the majority answer is the one in the tables above.

What I could not verify

• Prices. The Dye and Customization menus have shown your currency since 1.06.00, and Game8 says you pay. None of the guides I read prints what a dye job costs on the current build; the figures they do print, such as Game8's 1.50 Silver for a dyer's bottle, are bottle prices.
• Whether a hidden helmet still works. Some headgear does more than defend: 1.17.00 fixed "unique effects of special headgear" not activating in some situations. No Pearl Abyss note says whether Headgear Visibility affects those effects.
• Whether the October Twitch Drops, the Charter's Diving Sets or the edition bonus sets can be dyed. The only official statement is the March notice's, about the launch Drops.
• The dyers Rainbow Mane leaves out. Its text names a Monty that Console Pulse's dyer table does not; Game8's dye list identifies him as the Violet dyer, at Greenfield Farm Dyehouse in Demeniss. The challenge still names only seven of the ten dyers, and I did not confirm whether the other three count.
• What Charting the Unknown adds. Pearl Abyss's October 20 overview covers diving suits, housing and castles, but not dyes or the barber.

Quick Action Checklist

1. Do Brightening the Spirits as Kliff for the tutorial and a free Grey Dye.
2. Use every dye bottle from your inventory the moment you get it. An unused bottle unlocks nothing.
3. Talk to every regional dyer you pass, even with nothing to buy. It registers the family for Oliver, and seven named dyers count toward Rainbow Mane.
4. Brew rather than shop for the 50 craftable dyes: one family base, plus 3 Longhorn for Bright through 3 Stag for Deep.
5. Buy white from Wilmer in Timberton (15 Silver) after the Blackwater Oil Merchant Guild questline; black comes from the Muiquun Back Alley Shop after Muiquun's Black Market.
6. Push the camp to its third expansion and finish A Rumor at the Inksworth Bindery to bring Oliver home, plus the Greymane Commissions quests for Oliver, Connor and Eric if he will not dye.
7. Check the Dye UI, not a guide, for what is dyeable: since 1.13.00, undyeable items cannot be selected there.
8. Set Headgear Visibility and the weapon display options before you judge a dye job.
9. Place more than one Wardrobe if you collect outfits: 100 slots each, 1,000 at most.
10. Re-check after October 29. Charting the Unknown's launch-day notes may add to all of this.