A family of multiplicative operations in the BP Steenrod algebra is defined which is related to the total Steenrod power operation from the mod p Steenrod algebra. The main result of the paper links the BP versions of the total Steenrod power with the formal group approach to multiplicative BP operations by identifying the p-typical curves (power series) which correspond to these operations. Some relations are derived from this identification, and a short proof of the Hopf invariant one theorem...