Because pine is a soft wood, it is hard to get it to take stain evenly. You can use a prestain conditioner to help, but the wood needs to be stripped of any existing finish to work. Gel stain can go over previously finished wood, just sand lightly to roughen the surface a bit. On unfinished wood, it will give a more uniform appearance but will obscure the grain more than a regular stain (that could be good or bad, depending on the look you want).

Because gel stain doesn't soak into the wood very much, it might be a little more prone to wear since it's more of a surface finish. You could apply poly or gel topcoat to seal it, or just touch it up periodically with the gel stain.

Does it wear like paint or stain? I don't mind dings, scrapes and normal wear tear. I definitely don't want something that will flake off. DD has a white bed and dresser and the paint has some significant chips in it.

This is a bedroom set going in my son's room.

xoxosmom,is the piece unfinished? If so I'd highly recommend Minwax waterbased stains. It has a high pigment content and goes on looking more like paint than stain.
You can finish it with either water or oil based poly for a more durable finish.
Here's a picture of what it looks like on our wood trim...
{{!gwi}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Minwax watebased stains

Gel stain won't flake off; at least, mine doesn't. If not top coated, it might fade or get rubbed a bit, but that can be touched up. Long-term durability may depend on whether the piece is originally finished or not and how much prep work you do if the former.

Thanks everyone. I definitely think a gel stain would be the way to go because I have no idea of what the previous finish is and I don't want to sand it down to bare wood especially since I am not trying to highlight the grain or anything.

DS wants black furniture so I want to go very dark probably an espresso finish. Which gel stain is the easiest to work with? Miniwax, Bartley, etc?

General Finishes is great, although you may have to special order it (several online woodworking sites carry it and some unfinished furniture stores). Their Java sounds like what you want. Over on the kitchen forum, Celticmoon posted about gel staining her kitchen cabinets in great detail. I believe she used a regular stain first to get it really dark, then gel stain over the top. Just do a search and you should find her instructions and pictures.

I haven't posted on any of the recent gel stain threads b/c I've never used it over old finish. I have used Minwax (Honey Maple) over unfinished pine, after using a prestain conditioner. Then went over it with 2 (baseboards), 3 (window sills), or 6 (bathroom woodwork incl paneled door) coats of satin wipe-on poly.

If you're looking for a dark gel, I did this table (stripped to bare wood) in a 50-50 mix of Old Masters Spanish Oak (almost black) and Rich Mahogany (red) for what I'd call a "chocolate cherry" look. No finish on it yet. I got the Old Masters at Ben Moore store.

I was really lazy and gel stained directly over LOTS of pieces. I never polyed over the gel... If the piece is used heavily, there is definitely signs of wear.. for example the bar stool seats are wearing a little.. but I like that, it looks slightly distressed...

HOWEVER it is easily scratched!! My 9 year used his fingernail to scratch a foyer table I had darkened... Poly may have prevented it...

so, bottom line is it will scratch if it is heavily used (and if you have children!)

I used Gen Finishes Java