Mahora (2000)
by Guerlain

Way too heavy and sweet a floral for me. The tuberose and neroli together are just overpowering on my skin. Really puts me in mind of a brothel somehow. It is feminine and pretty, but it is in no way subtle or delicate. This one makes me feel like I'm ten years older than I am and overscented into the bargain.

This fragrance is very much about tuberose! (Purplebird7's written an excellent description!) White creamy tuberose and spicy vetiver rest upon a base of vanilla & sandalwood. It is so true that just when you think the topnotes are going to be too much, they calm, then ease skillfully into an extremely desireable oriental. Mahora seems as though she may be the illegitemate offspring of a Samsara-tuberose affair! I'm glad to have found this wonderful frag!

I have smelled Mayotte, not Mahora. Anyway, it's far too much of a blah-di-dah tropical white floral for my taste.

Mahora is the best tuberose fragrance I have ever smelled. It does not sit on my skin like most tuberose scents, screaming with treble notes. It goes on with all the sweetness of tuberose--plus more--neroli and jasmine and ylang-ylang. These are big, very sweet florals, but well-blended. Just when I think, "It's too smuch. It won't work, it is like all the others," something amazing happens. Instantly it drops down a notch, goes wide and smooth. A deep vanilla note sounds like a brass gong, pulling the treble down to bass. A hush falls over me. A tuberose that works, and works gloriously. Discontinued, sadly, tragically.

Mahora started out reminding me of some happy little vintage scent-- a tropical for young ladies I just couldn't place. It evolved, and almost reminded me of Tatiana, but so fleetingly I can't be sure.
Mahora's heart notes clearly show that she is the tropical sister of Mitsouko, and the drydown is fabulous.
Mahora's rather unfortunate sounding name:
I imagine some American girl from the south, on her cell phone with her beau: "Did you just say you bought me a bottle of ...My... Whore-ah?...What?"
A woman at a perfume shop told me this frgrance, slightly altered, will re-appear as 'Mayotte'. If this is true, the name will sound better, anyway. If you like Mitsouko, you should like this, and it is currently easy to find both in perfume discount shops and online.

Mahora, I do believe, is the Kali of Tuberose. I love Guerlain, but this is just too much...Perhaps my complaint is more against the flower than the perfume house. Tuberose can be a monster, indeed, and props to JP Guerlain for trying to tame the beast--but beast tamers (and crocodile hunters), however talented they may be, all meet their match eventually. The tuberose somehow cancels out every other note that might otherwise offer some form of redemption. Mahora is just too much (too much heady tuberose, ylang ylang and neroli) for my head.