
DATE
28 January 2025
TEXT
Annerieke Simeone
IMAGE
Brian Mul
At Azra Secerbegovic (ASPA), beauty and science go well together
With a passion for botany and a nose for entrepreneurship, Azra Secerbegovic has made an extraordinary journey from Sarajevo to the top of the Dutch beauty industry. Now, together with an investor, she wants to present her products to the world.
DATE
28 January 2025
TEXT
Annerieke Simeone
IMAGE
Brian Mul
At Azra Secerbegovic (ASPA), beauty and science go well together
With a passion for botany and a nose for entrepreneurship, Azra Secerbegovic has made an extraordinary journey from Sarajevo to the top of the Dutch beauty industry. Now, together with an investor, she wants to present her products to the world.
"This really is my all-time favourite." Among the other black and white jars and bottles, Mira Feticu fishes out the 'All Clean Balm'. "Have to feel it." Without waiting, the writer from The Hague smears the aromatic, light green goodness on my hand. "Do you smell that? This is the ultimate spa experience, isn't it!" Azra Secerbegovic of beauty salon ASPA chuckles at her regular customer's enthusiasm. "Do you know what's in it? Blue Tansy, a Moroccan worm herb. That is also used in antidepressants. It stimulates the mind." She holds up the jar. "Do you know why the packaging is black?Mirong glass blocks light so the oil doesn't oxidise." These are not just some commercial talk that the daughter of a chemical and mechanical engineer puts before us.

Azra conducts a comprehensive skin analysis with a specialised camera and provides personalised advice for the best care.
Born in former Yugoslavia, Azra Secerbegovic (1966) is not only the owner of ASPA, a skin clinic, but also has her own skincare line with creams, serums and masks. But before starting 'AZRA Botanical Simplicity', she first gathered as much knowledge as possible, because for her, beauty and science go well together.
Orchids
At the University of Sarajevo, where she studied both botany and chemistry, she heard from a lecturer about the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London, the oldest botanical garden in the world with its own scientific institute in the field of plant systematics. "I was deeply impressed by his story and shouted through the class, 'That's where I'm going to study later.' My classmates laughed about it. But I was determined." Despite strict selection - there was only room for 12 students a year - Secerbegovic was admitted to the 'London School of Horticulture'.
"Every three months we were allowed to study new plants. Then orchids, then alpine flowers, then tropical plants." Proudly, "David Attenborough (British biologist and television producer, ed.) awarded our diplomas." Due to the war in her motherland, Secerbegovic decided to stay longer in England and pursue a master's degree in international trade & marketing in European horticulture. Always useful if she ever wanted to start her own business.
'People nowadays use far too many and far too bad products. That only harms the skin'
With so much niche expertise, employers were lining up for her. At Agrexo, Israel's largest exporter of agricultural products, Secerbegovic managed the export of herbs, plants and flowers to Europe. She later became marketing manager and was responsible for the entire northern European market. "And then I ended up in the Netherlands, the head office was in Schiedam," she says. But she didn't want to live there. It became a more mundane city. By the sea. "I immediately bought a house in The Hague."
During a holiday, the globetrotter mused about her future. "I was 39 and thought: what was it again that I wanted? A cosmetics brand of my own! And how do I realise that?" Right: by learning even more. She started working part-time and in between flew to London, where she learned all about skin over three years at the prestigious London School of Beauty. Mira Feticu, friend of Secerbegovic, interferes in the conversation: "I don't know any salon owner with so many degrees!"
Desmond Tutu
At 42, Secerbegovic finally took the plunge. She opened ASPA at Hotel Des Indes and gained an international clientele. Famous guests staying at the five-star hotel booked appointments, such as actresses Meg Ryan and Isabelle Hupert. But the late Desmond Tutu, the South African cleric, also visited her. "For a facial," she confesses, laughing. In the height of the financial crisis, around 2009, guests stayed away from the hotel and she found a new location on Antonie Heinsiusstraat, a side street of Frederik Hendriklaan.

From every product sold at ASPA, 10 per cent goes to the Emina Foundation. With those proceeds, skin specialist Azra Secerbegovic supports children from the former Yugoslavia with scholarships.
She now has award-winning creams to her name. May 2024's 'Super glow vitamin C serum' was even named best salon product of the year by the Dutch Beauty Award jury. "I never make trendy products, that doesn't interest me. People nowadays use far too many and far too bad products. That only harms the skin. I make products that are based on science."
Passing on her knowledge is what she wants. "Preferably with an investor who understands the cosmetic world." Together with him or her, she wants to explore new worlds. She has never learned. "I see myself as the eternal student," she says.