Stamping Ink Types

The most common types of ink are dye or pigment based.
Dye ink can be permanent or non-permanent or permanent only after heat setting.
Dye inks can contain alcohol to speed drying or can be alcohol free.
Scrapbookers and some rubber stamp artists only us dye inks that are labelled acid-free to indicate that they will not damage paper over years.
Ranger inks (Adirondak, Distress, Archival) and Colorbox Chalk ink Pads( available in full size, cat's eyes, pads or petals) are dye ink pads which are quite readily available.
Most pigment ink is generally thick and slow drying on paper. It may never dry on non-porous surfaces like plastic or metal, because it often contains glycerin. This property makes it excellent for using with embossing powders. Versacolour pigment inks are a good brand as they are richer and a little higher quality than some other brands. Colorbox petal are also readily available and are useful for direct to paper techniques.
Some pigment inks which don't contain glycerin, can be heat set on various surfaces including some plastics and vellum. It is generally faster drying and is useful for embossing, however this needs to be done quite quickly.Tsukineko Brilliance is one of these types. They dry naturally on smooth surfaces like vellum or coated paper.
Some inks are solvent based. Stazon is a solvent based ink pad that requires a special cleaner to remove it from stamps. It is completely opaque and dries on smooth surfaces. It has become very popular for stamping on Cd's, microscope slides, glass, metal and acetate. It is not recommended for fabrics.
Dye ink is mostly stored in a cloth covered felt pad. These hold a lot of ink ad rarely need to be re-inked, with the exception of the chalky ink pads.
Pigment ink usually comes in foam pads. These inks need to come in a softer pad to get even coverage on the stamp.
Resist ink is designed to resist dye based ink, so if stamped onto a glossy paper and then dye ink is applied over it, the image that was stamped would resist the ink. There are two brands of resist ink. Both are designed to work on glossy or coated paper and will not provide a resist on standard card stock at all. Ranger Clear Resist Ink resists stronger and sharper than Versamark. It watermarks very similarly to Versamark. The only reason to recommend Versamark over Clear Resist would be for its ability to hold embossing powders. Clear Resist is not wet enough to hold the powders effectively. This is the same reason it makes a better resist.