“I got plummeted into Hell and realized I was in perimenopause,” Halle Berry tells ESSENCE exclusively. Without warning, the rest of her body felt the changes, too. “I had vaginal dryness and it felt like I had razor blades in my vagina and my sex life just came to a screeching halt,” she says. So, she reached out to Joylux, a women’s health platform for intimate care. 

“They had this vFit® Device, a red light therapy device,” she says, which first caught her attention. The FDA-approved device, developed by Ob-Gyns, supports pelvic floor strengthening which helped her vagina feel more lubricated by increasing blood flow and sensation. While red light therapy is normally used on the face and body, “they were talking about using it intravaginally,” she says. By the next few weeks, “things were feeling moist down there.”

Now, the actress and Re-Spin founder is collaborating with Joylux on their latest product, a moisture-rich gel that makes your vagina, as the name suggests, Juicy Like A Peach. “If I’m suffering like this, I know many women are even though they’re not talking about it,” she says. “I would always joke when we were promoting our lubricant called Let’s Spin, I would say, ‘If you want to be juicy like a peach, try this product!’” 

Formulated with HPMC-5, the gel adheres to the vaginal tissue, locks in moisture, and shields the tissue from friction. As a result, sex is less dry, painful, and even more comfortable than before. Most products on the market use estrogen, but, “I would argue that this creates a more moisture-filled environment even than the hormones,” she says, which is especially useful for women who aren’t on hormones. However, for Berry, who is on menopause hormones, “this actually is something that is additive to my regimen.”

While vaginal dryness was her first perimenopause symptom, she started menopause at 54 years old with no solution to insomnia, brain fog, and anger. “I felt myself slipping away,” she says. “I’ve talked about my highs and my lows and there’s no shame in that.” But, some of the people around her still tried to advise against her advocating for women’s health. “[They] said, ‘well kiss your acting career goodbye because now you’re going to be just menopausal’,” she recalls. Yet, “I don’t think it was a question for longer than five minutes.”

Between exercise, meditation, and minimal routines, supporting her menopausal body is more than just the products she uses. “[I do] not use a lot of things, but important things,” she says. “It’s about making good use of my days and my time and being discerning about who I spend it with.” 

Now, at 59, Berry doesn’t feel defined by her age. She’s working on a television show, a film called Florida, and a few other projects coming out in the fall. And, just like Mel B, speaking up about menopause “doesn’t scare me at all,” Berry says. The biggest misconception about menopause, she says, is thinking it’s the end of something. While menstruation may be over, “it’s not the end of our youth,” she says. “It’s the beginning of our longevity.”