Can You Dye Brown Eggs?

If you raise chickens that lay brown eggs, or you’re in the habit of buying brown eggs from the grocery store, you may be wondering if you need to buy a carton of white eggs to dye Easter eggs. Happily, the answer is no. Brown eggs are just as easy to dye, and they result in such beautiful colors.

Since you’re starting out with a base layer of brown, you won’t get the pastel colors that you may be used to, but you’ll get something even better: eggs in a range of earthy, jewel tones.

Want to see what sorts of colors you can expect to get, before you commit to dyeing brown eggs? Then, you’ve come to the right place.

Here are some eggs that we dyed with food coloring and vinegar. Those are brown eggs on the left and white eggs on the right. See how differently they took the colors? All of the eggs spent five minutes soaking in dye, but the brown eggs came out so much darker.

How to Make Your Own Food Coloring Egg Dyes

Now let’s look at some eggs that we dyed with natural dyes.

Those are brown eggs on the right and white eggs on the left. Since natural dyes take longer to work, we soaked these for three hours. Look how different the white and brown cabbage-dyed eggs turned out. Such a fun surprise.

Now, let me show you what happens when you soak brown eggs in natural dyes overnight.

Those are brown eggs are on the right, and white eggs on the left. Can you believe the colors? They’re so vibrant, you’d think they were painted on.

How to Dye Easter Eggs Naturally

Eager to Dye Brown Eggs Now That You’ve Seen the Possibilities?

Here are a couple tips to ensure you get good results:

Soak eggs in lighter colors longer, if the color isn’t showing up as much as you’d like. Light colors can be used to dye brown eggs
If you like to create two-toned eggs by placing rubber bands or stickers on your eggs before you dip them, be sure to dye them a dark enough color to create good contrast