Where Winds Meet lets you tweak almost every detail of your character, but hair color is deliberately locked down. You start with black hair and you cannot freely recolor it in the opening character creator. To move from the default look to blonde, white, red, or bright fantasy shades, you have to interact with the game’s dye systems and appearance tools.
How hair color works in Where Winds Meet
Hair color is treated as a premium-level customization. Unlike beard or eyebrow color, which you can adjust at no cost, changing hair color always consumes a dye item and only works on certain hairstyles.
Three rules shape what you can do:
- You cannot set hair color freely when you first create a character; you must accept black starter hair.
- Only hairstyles marked as dyeable can be recolored; starter styles are excluded.
- You need specific consumable items (hair dye) to apply any new color.
Inkshade vs. Timeless Hairdye
The game uses two main consumables for hair color:
| Item | Role | Color range | How you usually get it | Monetization angle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inkshade Hairdye | Basic hair dye | Muted, natural or darker tones | Exchanged for Essence of Earth or via the Drawing system | Low-cost (pearls) or earnable via in-game currency |
| Timeless Hairdye | Advanced hair dye | Bright, bold, light colors (including white and blonde) | Comes in stacks from Hairdye Giftboxes bought with Harmonic Cores or via Drawing | Premium-style access to highly flexible colors |
Inkshade Hairdye is the entry point. Each one is tied to muted or grounded shades and can be bought with premium pearls or swapped for Essence of Earth. Timeless Hairdye opens the full spectrum, including white, blonde, and saturated fantasy tones. It is rarer and usually bundled in giftboxes tied to Harmonic Cores and gacha-style Draws.
Where to get hair dye items
Once the in-game shop is unlocked, you can start hunting down hair dye. The shop exposes both direct purchase options and currency exchanges for dyes.
| Target | Shop area | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inkshade Hairdye | Drawing shop > Earth Essence tab, or Items tab | 5 Essence of Earth per Inkshade Hairdye, or 50 pearls in some regions | Gives access to basic muted colors, more common and cheaper |
| Timeless Hairdye | Drawing shop > Hairdye Giftboxes section | 1 Harmonic Core per Hairdye Giftbox (bundle of Timeless charges) | Used for bright and light colors, including white/blonde |
On top of the shop, dye items can pop out of broader Drawing pulls. That means you sometimes end up with dye as a side effect of rolling for outfits or other cosmetics. Regular dye is also obtainable from quests, login rewards, and events, but players describe it as relatively rare, so it is worth saving it for styles you plan to keep for a while.
There are also pre-dyed hairstyles sold as outfits. These come in fixed colors like white, pink, blonde, or red by default, but paid hairstyles themselves can usually be dyed later if they support the system.
How to unlock appearance changes and the Workshop
The full appearance editor, including the dye Workshop, is tied to an early narrative arc rather than a simple menu toggle. You first meet a character who can “disguise” you after a short quest sequence.
You progress through the main story until you escort Ruby to the General’s Shrine and descend into the area inhabited by the Faceless Ones. At the shrine underground, you use the Nameless Jade Flute to move these creatures onto a pressure plate and open the way forward.
After a dream-like sequence in the next room, the character Cheng Xin relocates to the door that leads back outside. Speaking to him and returning the Jade Flute unlocks his disguise service, which is effectively your in-world hook back into the character creator.
After this quest, you gain two avenues for appearance editing:
- Visit Cheng Xin at Still Shore via fast travel and ask him to disguise you.
- Use the Appearance menu from the main menu to enter customization directly.
How to change hair color in the Appearance menu
Once you have at least one Inkshade or Timeless Hairdye in your inventory and the Workshop is unlocked, you can finally recolor your hair. The game splits appearance editing into several layers: makeup, structural customization, and dyeing.
To dye your hair:
- Open the main menu and select Appearance.
- Switch to the Workshop tab.
- Choose the Dye option.
- Browse your hairstyles and pick one that shows a small multicolored icon on its thumbnail. This icon indicates that the style supports dyeing.
- Starter hairstyles do not have this icon and cannot be recolored.
When you select a dyeable style, the game offers two dye modes tied to your items:
- Basic Hair Dye – consumes Inkshade Hairdye and opens a more limited color range focused on softer, darker, or natural hues.
- Advanced Hair Dye – consumes Timeless Hairdye and unlocks vivid shades and very light colors like white and blonde.
Within each mode you get control over several zones, typically labelled Basic, Gradient, and Highlights. These act like layers on the model’s hair strands and can be tuned using a color picker rather than pre-baked swatches. You can move around a color wheel-style selector to find your exact tone.
When you are satisfied, confirm with Save. The game applies the new color and consumes the corresponding dye item.
How to change face, makeup, and other details
Hair dye sits alongside a broader appearance system that splits free edits from paid structural changes.
| Category | What you can change | Cost | Where it lives in the UI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Makeup | Facial hair, eye color, makeup details | Free to adjust | Finalization screen under Makeup |
| Customization | Shapes and sizes of facial features | Consumes a Water Lady Script when you confirm | Finalization screen under Customization |
| Dye | Hair color on supported hairstyles | Consumes Inkshade or Timeless Hairdye | Appearance > Workshop > Dye |
Water Lady Scripts can be obtained from the Jianghu Treasures Shop. They gate significant facial reworks so that small tweaks (like changing eye color) stay free, while full rebuilds are a premium action.
What you can and cannot do with hair colors
The current system gives a lot of range, but it has clear constraints you should understand before spending resources.
| Capability | Supported? | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Change hair color after creation | Yes | Only through dye items and dyeable hairstyles. |
| Set hair color at character creation | No | Starter hair is black and locked at that stage. |
| Dye starter hairstyles | No | Starter cuts have no dye icon; you must unlock another style. |
| Use a full color wheel | Yes, with limits | Color picker exists, but Inkshade vs. Timeless determines how bright or light you can go. |
| Get blonde or white hair | Yes | Requires Timeless Hairdye or pre-dyed styles that come in those colors. |
| Change beard and eyebrow color | Yes, free | Handled separately under Makeup; no dye items required. |
| Revert or change hair color again | Yes, with cost | Each new dye application spends another dye item. |
Players who want specific shades like ginger can usually reach them with regular (Inkshade) dye by nudging the color picker into the right range, though very light or extremely saturated values lean on Timeless dye.
How early you can get non-black hair
Practically, you can move beyond black hair as soon as three conditions are met:
- You have progressed to the point where the in-game shop and Drawing systems are open.
- You have obtained at least one dyeable hairstyle (usually from gacha, events, or paid outfits).
- You have secured at least one Inkshade or Timeless Hairdye through the shop, currency exchange, or Draws.
If your priority is something like blonde on day one, focus on acquiring Timeless Hairdye or an outfit with a pre-dyed blonde style as soon as you gain access to monetized cosmetics. For darker browns, auburn, reds, or greens, basic Inkshade dye is often enough and is cheaper to experiment with.
Hair color in Where Winds Meet is intentionally a small project: you chase currencies, unlock the right style, then sculpt a color profile in the Workshop. It takes more effort than a one-click toggle, but once you have everything in place, swapping from black to blonde or to a custom gradient becomes a repeatable part of your character’s journey.
