That was the REAL Charlie! Not the indefinable slush that still lurks in rudimentary forms of what it once was, found in sales and on bargain tables.
No. I was half child, half teenager when my mother used it. And I would occasionally spray a little on myself.
It smelled so wonderfully cool and green. I imagined a large garden filled with all sorts of rare grasses and flowers. In the middle, a big fountain, and next to it, a pond. Frogs croaked at its rushes-covered edge, barely visible, yet so loud. Like a whole concert. One deep, a bass... "Quuuuak", another with a falsetto voice..."Quiiiiiak" .. And I imagined playing Grimm's "The Frog Prince" there with a friend, two princesses in the most beautiful garden of the kingdom. They played with a golden ball.
Which then landed in the fountain... And one of the frogs tried... to, well... most people probably know... kiss, frog turns into prince.. (back then, a singer named Bernd Clüver.. oh so sweet he was :-)))
And along with that, the most beautiful scent I knew. With "frog green" galbanum, as I know today, and rose and grass and leaf green and rare magical flowers that lured the prince. And "toads"... jealous "friends" who wanted the scent too. One wanted to give me her beloved "Janine D." for it, which I declined...
Of course, my mother noticed the depletion in the bottle... and eventually got me my own "Charlie"
No 13-year-old could have been prouder... to possess such a scent.
Charlie is a great scent; it somehow reminds me of Granny Smith apples. I even had it as a cream perfume in a silver apple-shaped tin hanging on a chain, which my sister generously passed down to me :-) Nostalgia trophy!