How To Get Rust Skins | Unlock Skins

How rust skins work

Rust is a first-person shooter that utilizes skins. These in-game item shops can make your experience a lot more enjoyable, even though they don’t do anything to the underlying numbers that determine how much damage you deal or can absorb. Although, you can get Rust skins in various ways.

This guide will teach you how to get Rust skins and how to unlock them!

Here are the 6 legitimate ways to get Rust skins:

  1. Buy from 3rd-party marketplaces: Most discounts
  2. Buy from the Rust item store: Most convenient
  3. Acquire from the Steam Marketplace: Known Marketplace
  4. Twitch Drops: Most limited option
  5. Trading: Requires knowledge
  6. Open Crates: Most entertaining
In-game footage

How to Use Rust Skins

Using skins in Rust is quite easy. All you need to do is select one of the skins associated with an item that you’re about to craft, and after the item is crafted. Remember, however, that before you can use a particular skin, you need to own it.

See below an explanation using the Rock item as an example:

  1. Open up your crafting menu.
  2. Locate the item labeled “Rock.”
  3. Click on this item.
  4. Below the item’s name, you should see a section titled “Skins.”
  5. In this section, you will find two skins: the default one and the one you recently purchased.
  6. Click on the skin you purchased to select it.
  7. And there you go! You’ve successfully applied your new skin to the rock.

If you want to change the skin of an item in Rust, it’s enough to drop the item into the repair bench and then select a different skin for it.

How to Get Skins in Rust

Rust Skins

Anyone who uses Rust skins should know how to get rust skins. There are multiple ways in which you can obtain them.

How to buy skins from Tradeit.gg

Tradeit.gg is a reliable marketplace to get Rust skins. The Rust skin you’re looking for is not only simple to locate and purchase, but it is also less expensive on Tradeit. Rare, difficult-to-find skins are available on our store for sometimes 25% cheaper than the other 3rd-party marketplaces.

Check the step-by-step to get Rust skins on Tradeit:

  1. Log in: Click on the “Log in with Steam” button on the top right of the website. This will prompt you to log in with your Steam account. Ensure you have Steam Guard enabled for trading.
  2. Navigate to Rust Store: Once logged in, navigate to the Rust store by clicking on “Store” at the top of the page and then selecting Rust.
  3. Browse Skins: Look through the available skins for Rust. You can sort the skins by price, popularity, and other filters.
  4. Select a Skin: Click on the skin you want to purchase. This should open a window with more details about the skin and will add to your cart.
  5. Checkout: Once you’ve selected all the skins you want to purchase, navigate to your shopping cart, review your order, and click on “Buy”.
  6. Confirm Purchase: Follow the prompts to confirm your purchase. You may need to confirm the trade on your Steam account.
  7. Receive Skins: After confirming the purchase and the trade, the skins should be transferred to your Rust inventory on Steam.

How to buy from the Rust Item Store

This is the most obvious choice, although, in the in-game store, you won’t find discounts as you can on the previous option. If you want a skin, follow these steps:

Go to the in-game Rust Store and buy it. This store can be found by entering Rust and selecting the appropriate tab on the left from the game menu. It should be the 4th from the top.

Here you will find all kinds of skins, and you can select the ones you want to have. Skin prices vary based on rarity, popularity, and other factors, but you can get decent cosmetics for just a few dollars.

  1. To purchase a Rust skin from the Rust Item Store.
  2. Open the store.
  3. Select your skin from the list of available items.
  4. Read about its description and the materials that can be obtained by breaking it down.
  5. Make sure you have sufficient balance in your Steam account.
  6. Confirm the purchase.
Rust Skins

How to buy Rust skins on Steam

If you want to buy a skin from the Rust Item Store but can’t find it there, another option is to check the Steam Community Market. There you will find a lot of skins that you can choose from, and you should always use the search bar to speed up the search.

If you have trouble finding the exact name of the skin you intend to buy, type the approximate name on Google and add “Rust Steam Market” at the end. You are very likely to find what you’re searching for.

Through this method, you’re buying from other users, just like on Tradeit, but without discounts.

Once you have found your desired item and are satisfied with the price, make a transaction with the Steam wallet. The process is intuitive and does not require any additional guidance.

A step-by-step guide to purchasing skins from Steam.

  1. Launch Steam.
  2. After that, select ”Community” and then ”Market”.
  3. Enter “rust” into the search bar.
  4. Go through the item list to find the kind of skin you wish to buy. To purchase an item, click the “Buy Now” button. 
  5. Click “Buy” after reading and agreeing to the Steam Subscriber Agreement.

Getting Rust Skins From Drops

You can also get Rust skins by random drops, both in-game and from viewing streamers.

Rust Random Skin Drops 

With Steam’s Playtime Item Grant System, RUST players receive rewards for their in-game activity. The choice to enable this mechanism is up to the game developers. RUST has chosen to make use of this mechanism to give away free skins and other stuff to its players.

Every game that makes use of this method has a different frequency of prizes, which ultimately depends on the parameters set by the developer. The maximum award frequency for RUST was 1440 minutes, while the automatic grants were 720 minutes (12 hours) (1 day).

Hence, regardless of your skill level, you can get free random skins or even skin crates just for playing RUST, your favorite survival game. But since the stuff that drops for you is totally random, you’ll need some good fortune on your side.

Some seasoned gamers claim that, on average, every 50–100 hours, a random cosmetic item can be obtained.

Twitch Drops

One unorthodox way of getting free skins is via Twitch Drops. If you enjoy watching Rust streamers, you should know that Twitch offers, from time to time, Rust Twitch Drop events. During such events, you might get skins for free by simply watching drops-enabled streams.

One thing that you must do for this to work is to enable Twitch drops between your Twitch and Steam accounts.

This is a great way to get free Rust skins.

You can find more information about this by visiting the Twitch Drops page.

Other methods to get Rust skins

Although the above-mentioned ways to get skins in Rust are the most common and popular, you can also get them by trading or opening crates.

Trading

If you want to trade your Rust skins, sites like Tradeit.gg will help you do that easily. You can trade Rust skins with other players using any Steam items or skins you have in your inventory.

Skin Crates

Skin Crates are another way of getting skins in Rust. This is an RNG-based method, so you need to be aware of the potential of losing money. The skin crates that you can purchase are of 4 types:

  • Low-Quality Bag
  • High-Quality Crate
  • High-Quality Bag
  • Weapon Barrel

The Low-Quality Bag contains common skins and costs 10 wood to craft. This is the cheapest of the 4 but also the least rewarding one.

The High-Quality Crate costs 5 cloth + 10 wood to craft. Unlike the Low-Quality Bag, it contains all sorts of quality items, such as sleeping bags. If you’re a bit lucky, you can make a profit by crafting crates of this type.

The High-Quality Bag is quite expensive but will give you excellent rewards. It contains a wide array of skins, and crafting one costs 70 cloth, 5 wood, and 1 metal. This means that you will have to utilize a lot of skins to get the required ingredients, but it will probably be worth it.

The Weapon Barrel is an expensive skin crate that contains skins for weapons and tools.

Keep in mind that skin crates can not only be crafted. They can also be bought from the Steam Market. If you don’t mind grinding for hours, you should opt for the first method and slowly gather materials for crafting your desired Rust skin crates. But the second option is also available if you have money to spend.

How to Buy Skin Crates in Rust

If you want to buy skin crates in Rust, all you need to do is follow the guide:

  1. Go to our Rust store.
  2. Search for the crate/bag you want to open.
  3. Click on the crate you want to item you want to buy.
  4. Press ”Buy” and follow the instructions.

Some cost more; others cost less. It’s up to you once you will buy. A high-quality crate costs around 3 times more than the low-quality stuff.

How to Craft Skin Crates in Rust

If you want to craft your skin crates instead of spending money on them, go to your Inventory page, which can be found in Rust’s main menu, and then select the Crafting option. After that, select the type of skin crate you want to create and ensure you have enough materials to craft it. You may need wood, metal, or cloth.

If you lack the necessary materials, consider the possibility of breaking down some of your skins. You will get a certain amount of materials based on the type of skin you decide to break down. The types of these materials depend upon the item that gets broken down.

Learn how to make Rust skins.

Final Words 

Here is our complete guide to how rust skins work and how rust players can obtain them. You can purchase your favorite Rust skin items from the Rust store, but if you are short on money, then you can get Rust items from Twitch drops or Random drops. 

Posted by
William Westerlund

William is an author, editor, and an avid gamer with over 10.000 hours in CS:GO (Counter-Strike 2). He also enjoys playing Rust, Dota 2, and TF2 but never became a top 1% player in any of those games.