Mira-Baï Chopard 1998

I cannot find him.

If the title weren't, I would never put Mira Bai to India. Itself I wasn't in India, I, however, know Indian markets, such as in Singapore.
I associate spices and joss sticks here. Already the head note confuses me. No fruits lie in the basket; flower notes sweetishly reach me only muffledly. Jasmine and cedar match India; the flower is easy to be aware of. Neither cedar nor Sandalwood show her typical notes. So he goes, the rest of nothing.

A pity, bottle and name have very much promised more.

Mira-Baï is short lived in more than one way. First of all, Chopard decided to discontinue the fragrance, which is a shame, since I tend to like it. But furthermore, Mira-Baï does not last for long which is also a shame since that makes me wear it less than I want to. It is a sophisticated and delicate scent that would be close to perfect had it not been for the short life span.
The fragrance is a lovely blend of the fruity and the sweet. The black currant note gives the scent the darkness it needs and the praliné note adds a sweetness to the scent that is quite unique. I think Chopard has made a really nice and interesting fragrance. But do not expect it to be a long lasting companion on a long night. It will disappoint you.
277/365

Currently, I am returning to many old fragrance loves. Therefore, when I discovered Mira-Baï in the collection of a dear perfumer, I absolutely wanted to revisit it. Interestingly, I never owned Mira-Baï in my youth. It was also not on the market for long. I, of course, sniffed it upon its release and found it good, but I never bought it myself.

So it is all the more exciting for me to rediscover it today. Yes, Mark Buxton definitely played a bit with the Cašmir original formula here, as loewenherz has already recognized and aptly described before me. While Cašmir is a rather heavy, oriental scent from the very beginning, this one is airy-light, almost transparent. I once owned a bottle of the summer version of Cašmir (Summer Breeze), which, interestingly, I never really liked. It should have smelled like Mira-Baï. That would have fit.

Mira-Baï starts with a fruity-sweet peach. At times, I think of those Haribo peaches. When I stick my nose into such a bag, it smells quite similar at first. There’s also a slight association with Trésor by Lancôme. Peach - rose-lily of the valley. We have that with the Lancôme classic, which I also never owned, as it had just a bit too much edge for me. All of this rests on the warm amber base note known from Cašmir, which I love so much. The musk is significantly more restrained than in Cašmir. So, Mira-Baï could also be a fragrance for those who found the musk in Cašmir's original formula a bit too powerful.

I also think a bit about the peach body lotion from Biotherm, if anyone still remembers that. Another product that was highly popular in the late nineties.

I like fruit in perfume, especially in a nineties style. But whether Mira-Baï will become my fragrance, I honestly cannot assess yet. On one hand, I am in love with the base note, which I can also get from my Cašmir, but on the other hand, it feels a bit too much like fruit salad for me to want to wear it more often. I am undecided.

Like loewenherz before me, I can also somewhat understand why it disappeared from the market so quickly. And why I didn't buy it earlier. It simply resembles too many fragrances that were already dominant in the perfume shops back then. Those who owned Cašmir did not buy Mira-Baï. Those who loved Trésor tended to stick with Trésor. These fragrances just had overall more character than this delicate Mira-Baï. Nowadays, in the niche segment, this little treasure would probably have a better chance of staying with us a bit longer. Perhaps in Buxton's niche brands like Folie à Plusieurs or Moth & Rabbit? But it might also lack a bit of edge for that.

Many thanks to the lovely MadameLegras for the testing opportunity.

Around the turn of the decade from the 90s to the 00s, I was a student - and one of my jobs at the time involved doing so-called 'promotions' for perfume (which I was quite uninterested in back then). Some of them were very funny, others less so - depending on what the agency had come up with to promote the respective fragrance. The campaign for Chopard's Mira-Baï was my last and involved us - usually working in pairs - standing in humiliating peach-colored T-shirts in front of a pavilion made of peach-colored chiffon in the pedestrian zone, trying to entice passersby to experience a splash of Indian exoticism.

And because the pavilion was nicely decorated with sequin-embroidered fabric strips (Sari - logo?) and golden elephants with mirror shards on their ears - and there were also free samples: Eau de Toilette and body lotion! - Mira-Baï and we effortlessly attracted countless ladies into the scent-filled tent, transforming Sandra from Dormagen into a mysterious Maharani and sending Uschi from Bergheim to the side of the smoldering Bollywood god Shah Rukh Khan. It was a cloudy rainy day back then in Cologne and far too cool for mid-June. But Sandra and Uschi didn't care - they danced cheek-to-cheek with Shah Rukh Khan in the peach-colored chiffon pavilion on Schildergasse, thanks to Mira-Baï.

After those two days in Cologne, I can hardly judge the fragrance fairly anymore - but I remember that Mira-Baï, beyond its powdery peach cheerfulness and softly flickering sandalwood, was not a bad scent - albeit unremarkable and just a typical creation of its cohort from the mid to late 90s. The Geneva jeweler Chopard aimed to build on the enormous commercial success of Mira-Baï's predecessor Cašmir and to optimally utilize the emerging Bollywood mania in Germany for this purpose - and ultimately was painfully lacking in imagination, as Mira-Baï employs the same Cašmir triad of peach, jasmine, and sweet tropical wood.

Conclusion: when the BBC called fifteen years ago to choose the British national dish, the population did not opt for kidney pie or Yorkshire pudding, but for Chicken Tikka Masala, invented in post-colonial England and not on the banks of the Ganges or Brahmaputra. Chicken Tikka Masala is India tailored to European needs, it's basically 'India to go' - and that's exactly what Chopard's Mira-Baï is.

I'm in such a good mood, I might as well write the next comment!
I met Mira Baï at the end of 1999. I was not yet 20 years old, just out of my "Cabotîne de Grès" phase, and I found it simply heavenly. It had something soft, warm, and comforting about it. Peach, nestled in cream, with a hint of lily of the valley and amber. It was not an oriental fragrance, leaning more towards floral-fruity.
The longevity was not great; you had to reapply it quite a bit.
With it, I danced through various discotheques (back then, they were still called that) and experienced my first great love. My then-boyfriend always affectionately called me "Peach Mouse" - sweet back then, today I would probably run away screaming at that nickname! Still, the little Mira Baï remained my absolute signature scent. With it, I experienced India in Swabia and felt simply irresistible...
But as it had to happen, I grew up, and Little India gave way to other fragrances. The "Roma" and "Poême" era followed.
When it eventually came back to my mind, it was no longer available for purchase. To this day, I find that incomprehensible!!! In an auction forum for advanced users, I once bought a bottle for a lot of money, which I could immediately throw in the trash: No more peach, more like a sewer - the scent had gone bad...
And so I am left with only delicate memories of a wonderful peach-cream time! What a shame about you, Mira Baï!