Best ink for stamping

I'm surprised you had issues with HA. Could it be the stamp? I find that cheap stamps don't stamp well. Also, HA has different formulations of inks - dye and shadow. I find that the shadow inks don't stamp as well for me.

Personally I use My Favorite Things, Hero Arts, Simon Says Stamp, Stampin Up!, and TH Distress Inks. My favorite is MFT Hybrid ink.

Go onto YouTube and look up Jennifer Macquire - she does an ink comparison video which you may find to be helpful. There is also another couple of youtubers who do the same.......this may point you in the right direction

I just did a book of ink swatches with all of my inks. The best stamping by far was Altenew (and I only have the cubes so that says a lot about them). I also have Ranger (regular dye ink), my favorite things dye ink, and stampin up. Some colors of Ranger stamped well, some didn't. MFT was better than stampin up but most of my SU pads are pretty old.

I really like the way that Ranger Archival stamps, but I bought the reinkers and made them juicier than they originally were.

One thing that I love about Ranger Archival and Ranger Dye inks are that they are water-resistant.  I find that some brands of ink, even when completely dry, smear a lot when touched with even a little water.  There are some other brands that are also water resistante -- I think Simon Says Stamp, Hero Arts, and Lawn Fawn.  I thought MFT is very vulnerable to water, which makes it good for techniques.  

Have you found the reactivity with water to be a problem?  How is Altenew about this?

Probably no surprise that the one with the least waterfastness is the one that stamps and probably blends the easiest.

I have some non-purple swatches of altenew and probably some purple of stampin up. I'll check those next. I don't have blackberry bliss though. 

sorry this is sideways. Not sure what happened-it was upright on my phone. All of these were sprayed with water and have been sitting for a couple of days. eta: if you click on it, it's upright. 

Gale -- This is so interesting. It's strange how some of the Altenews bled badly, but that one didn't at all.

Blows my theory about purples . . .

Versifine is my go-to unless I am using my copics, then I use memento. Distress inks are good for some techniques, but create a more distressed appearance.

I've always used memento but even after a fresh reinking I wasn't getting a good solid black image. I bought a MFT hybrid pad to try and it stamps SO nicely. I haven't tried it with copics yet. Gina K also makes a black that is supposed to work with copics. It's also supposed to work with watercolor but it smears for me (on the Neenah classic crest). 

My favourite ink for stamping is Altenew crisp dye ink.

Here is the results of my ink / water test.  They all survived a couple of drops of water on them. 

FYI -- The Umbrella brand is scrapbook.com's house brand.  The Wendy Vecchi is her series of Ranger Archival.

The results didn't surprise me because I tried to purge non-water fast inks from my collection.  What got me started was when I was making a card with MFT inks, my finger was just slightly moist and the ink bled noticeably. 

I have been very pleased with the Umbrella inks and consider them very comparable to the HA inks.

I'll try to do some coverage / spreading tests to show you in the next few days.  The samples I showed are double-stamped with my stamping tool.

Based on how reactive they are with water, I'm rethinking my decision to get all of the altenew inks. I used a dark blue to blend on a card yesterday and my barely wet finger (from cleaning a stamp) really caused a big reaction on it even though it was very dry. Luckily in an area that I was planning to trim off.