The Distress powders do have a pitted, bumpy look to them and they're matt so you won't get that 'glossiness' that you tend to associate with heat embossing. You do need to use either the Distress inks or the specially formulated Distress Embossing ink pad with them - something like Versamark has too much 'grab' so although you'll still get the matt finish, you won't get the same level of texture as the release crystals stick to the paper too much.
One of my favourite cards using Distress powders is one by Sherrie Siemens. If you visit her blog
here and then click through on the card, you should be able to see the texture as the pic is pretty big.
Distress Inks are awesome, you'll find lots of discussion about them if you just search the forum and the technical info on the Ranger site is useful too. I particularly love the brown-toned ones but they're all lovely to work with.
HTH!
Another Shopping Day Question - Tim Holtz Distress Powders?
