Nars Rouge Basque (pictured) is closest by a mile, but still redder, glossier and more conventional on the lip.  Nars Golshan and Bite Beauty Crushed Chili share a chunk of its DNA but they are, again, closer to red, even if I deem them neutrals.  MAC Chili looks like Marrakesh's twin if you haven't seen the former in a while; upon comparison it's surprisingly brighter and yellower.  MAC Paramount is quite a bit darker and a definite coppery brown rather than rusty.  MAC Auburn pencil is darker and cooler.  MAC Brick pencil is far redder.  MAC Retro is oddly apposite, yielding a similarly muted, mid-tone effect from different ingredients, being cooler and more dirty-sullen-rosy, so if you can't werk Marrakesh, but are hurting for something moyen, look into that guy.  I'm really enjoying this shade and advise you to pick it up... if you can find the damn thing.  Get your shit together, MAC.

The moon was a jewel at god knows what in the morning a few days ago, so I took some pics.
 
After all this time, I still don't know shit about cameras or exposure or aperture priority etc. and you can probably tell.  I was quite proud of myself for finding the ISO button in the dark and knowing to dial in one direction instead of the other.  Normally I would be embarrassed, having to admit such abject ignorance, but when it comes to photography I just don't care.  It's such a fucking vainglorious and utterly bullshit conceit, all that framing and recording, as though you were somehow responsible for the beauty or intrigue of the result.  Unless you create objects to photograph, calm your auteur hauteur and realise that your genius eye is a commonplace thing, and that you might as well be taking brass rubbings for all that you actually contribute.  Photographers can only ever convey what they once looked at; BFD.  We should be grateful we've had the opportunity and just leave it at that.

With that in mind, I have a lot of (exemptionalist and nepotistic) respect for my partner's images and his impressive technical knowledge.  He pursues photography as a craft and a science, striving to better represent the natural world that he values so much.  It's not a vanity project.

Anyway, I prefer the one below lol.

Though I might be white and therefore privileged beyond the average POC hair experience, the degree of policing and assumption I've personally encountered would probably surprise a centre-part Becky.  The suuuper-subtle inquiries about my background (they mean ethnicity) by that strange clade of people who are low-key preoccupied with one's precise degree of Anglo-Saxonicity; big hair and dark eyes get their pursuivant nostrils twitching.  Am I... something else?  The pervasive cultural insistence on curly (they mean mad) hair's link to certain kinds of personalities and conduct.  All those wilful, temperamentally incontinent and usually doomed literary heroines: they don't have flat lobs.​  Then there's the inquisitive strangers who feel entitled to physically touch your fucking hair (old ladies at bus stops: okay.  Jelly queens honking about your wig game: can deal.  Creepers in the seat behind you on the bus: not fucking okay).  And oh yes, the fetishisation from dipshits who think you're going to flip their penis for real with your feral, folicularly-driven sluttiness.  
​
And last but not least, the reason why I haven't been to a salon in twenty years- that look they give you.  As though your head was going to explode and infect theirs with your unruly aberrance.  The wistful yanking of your curls out to their real (they mean straight) length; it could be so much flatter and longer!  The clueless, disinterested butchering.  The completely unsolicited attempts to blow it straight.  The last peremptory ho to try this was astounded and dismayed that I preferred my natural texture and actually congratulated me on being able to 'come to terms with it'.  That was the very last time I paid someone with a fucking pixie cut on a homely-arse five-head to touch my shit.

So now I cut and dye my own damn hair, wash it once or twice a week, air dry and don't brush.  Recently I started using Deva Curl Let It Be finishing spray and I like it well enough; Deva products are fairly natural-ingredient based and non-irritant and I'm just grateful they don't make my hair situation more difficult.  I wouldn't boost them to anyone who wasn't interested in cutting down on synthetic nasties in their personal care regime as I don't think their performance is substantially better than anything else I've tried.

Washing your hair with Sabun soap is a bit of a trip, requiring you to let go of a few deep-core assumptions.  The dread of having to de-tangle non-conditioned hair is hard to understand unless you've held a fistful of your own crispy, broken frizz.  I've come to accept that the artificial shine furnished by conventional Eurocentric products just isn't in curly hair's best interest.  The softer natural lustre provided by organically-derived lipids is what curls need for texture stability and preservation.  This might be old news to people of colour, but curly white peeps just get pointed at white-people product and told we're not doing it right when that shit doesn't work. 

The Sabun lather feels rather unconventional on the head. It's important to get an even, all-over lather going, especially if you're longer, and to rinse thoroughly, working from back to front with warm water, to distribute the oils.  While still wet (don't even towel dry, just enough to stop it dripping), spray in your favourite anti-frizz product and either big-comb through or just work it down the length manually.  Scrunch gently to reinstate your curl shape.  Then leave it alone.  There's sometimes a slightly greasy feel while it's drying and it's hard to believe your hair won't feel heavy or dull, but I promise the finished product does not.  Allow an extra half an hour of air-dry time if you're on the clock.  

For me, the Sabun+spray allows my natural texture to reform peaceably without frizz, and doesn't bring on greasy-root syndrome by denaturing the scalp. It dispels that itchy product buildup that plagues us sensitive types and doesn't aggravate my psoriasis (it doesn't make it any better, but what does?).  It hasn't stripped my colour, which is a semi-permanent black.  And as a final blessing, the Sabun imparts a weirdly obedient cast to your hair; it stays placid and arrangeable.  The result is natural, snaky curl instead of morale-destroying fluff.  I am really pleased with how aggressively archaic it looks.

No one is paying me to say any of this.  I just want to share this rare positive experience with widely available, eco-friendly and inexpensive products.  The Sabun is about $7 per enormous bar in New Zealand; the Deva Curl spray is about $35 which is a lot, but for me it's lasted a long time and it replaces the $15 per bottle I dropped on shampoo and conditioner.  And both are so much better than tipping litres of industrial chemicals down the drain. Taking one damn product into the shower is incredibly liberating.  Give it a try if you have dry, frizz-prone hair and have lost patience with conventional shampoos and conditioners.

We live in a beautiful place.  It enjoyed some 20C the other day, which was a record for the month.
June is supposed to be winter, with temps between 5 and 10 C.
I personally feel as though this super-ugly climate clusterfuck stuff is going to kick off much sooner than most people realise; it is already underway in more marginal parts of the world.  We don't have kids, have never owned a car, don't fly and live very modestly, but we'll still be eating shit along with everyone who couldn't be bothered to do one fucking thing to be less of an environmental catastrophe.  Cheers, arseholes.  Cheers.