I'm afraid I can't give this a specific blow-by-blow review because I don't own Mama Ji, but when I was in San Francisco recently, I was going through a friend's enormous collection of BPAL scents, thoroughly immersing myself in every smell offered to me when I stumbled upon this little imp of Mama Ji hiding under bottles of fragrance.
It was hideously late that night and I was tired, but the name seemed familiar to me. Comforting. And when I pried the stopper off the little imp, some of the oil got on my fingertips. The smell from this little imp was an EXPERIENCE.
I can't discuss the different components that made this smell amazing, but the experience it gave me was a flood of memory that was comforting and emotional and amazing.
It was, for me, the days of my youth when I visited the Malibu hindu temple and would stand there for prayers and blessings, cupping my hands, right over left, and accepting saffron water to drink and smoothe over my hair (getting most of it on the floor and on my clothes because I couldn't figure out how to drink out of my hands). It was the smell of that temple. It was also a flooding memory of being terribly distraught in Puttaparthi one night. My parents were fighting and left each other at the hotel. And in my crying, a girl with a basket of strings of jasmine flowers comforted me by sitting me down in front of her and threading jasmine through my hair.
That scent was absolutely brilliant. I cannot wait to get my hands on it to dip my nose into it again and put it on my skin to see how it plays out.
As it dried and wore down on my fingertips, it became lighter and warmer and spicier, but more subtle. Less powerful. Like lingering warmth from a mother, just to let you know she's still there for you.
