Trust me, your final mix will not be all that much different than what you have already done at this point, unless you are adding in some very special effects for creative purposes. More about that later. The title of this section really fits because equalization will add some type of distortion to your mix. There is no way around it. An EQ is a filter.
Filters phase shift signal.
Phase shift creates some degree of distortion. So you could say that by using an EQ, you are making the audio signal kind of dirty . This may be desirable. EQ is wonderful stuff. Often, it will create ambient effects to the track because you may be bringing out the room sound that was being masked by an overly hot frequency.