Halle Berry turns entrepreneur

She suggested an imprint of waves on the back of the bottle--to express a connection to nature--and added rugged copper-colored rings--which resembled a bangle she was wearing at the time--to the bottle's neck.

"My strategy was to present something to people that was honestly me," the Academy Award-winning actress told ForbesWoman of her collaboration with Coty. "If I don't like it, my name's not on it. If I haven't been in there dibbling and dabbling, giving my opinion on things, my name's not on it."

What's in a name? If your name is Halle Berry, a lot.

Berry's first fragrance, Halle, debuted in March 2009 after two years of development--just as the economy was tanking. On March 9, the Dow tumbled to 6,547.05, marking its lowest point in more than a decade. Berry had her doubts about the timing, wondering if "now is not the time to be asking consumers ... [to] buy something else."

In fact, the sudden success of Halle by Halle Berry was seen as an anomaly in the challenged beauty market: In the first half of 2009, while fragrance sales fell by 8.7%, Halle by Halle Berry debuted as the best-selling fragrance at stores including Target, CVS, Walgreen and Kohl's.

"Because there was such a flood in the market of celebrity fragrances, we were worried that [Berry] would be one of many, but amazingly enough her fragrance rose to No. 1," says Stephen C. Mormoris, senior vice president of global marketing at Coty.

The decision to sell the line--which includes eau de parfum, shower gel, body lotion and natural deodorant spray--at lower-end retailers also helped boost its success.

And while sales for women's prestige fragrances fell 10% in the first half of this year, women's mass-market sales grew 1%.

The combination of an attractive price point--Halle products retail for $17 to $35--and a powerful name produced a retail winner.

The majority of A-list actresses, like Jennifer Lopez or Sarah Jessica Parker, start at the high