Anyone who meets Renske Ypma (Founder/Director Renske Ypma Clinics) immediately sees her passion. She has worked as a skin therapist for thirty years and since last year she has taken a new step with her own skin clinics in Amsterdam-South and Zandvoort. “The best thing about my profession is that I can literally make someone feel better in their skin, which gives me enormous satisfaction,” she says. Even during her teenage years, she regularly visited a skin therapist herself. Those experiences laid the foundation for an impressive career path: from pioneering with the first lasers to building a national chain. And yet she felt it was time to return to the core with Renske Ypma Clinics.
Follow your Feeling
As an entrepreneur, Renske has learned important lessons over the years. The biggest? Always stay close to her feelings. “That has never let me down, it sometimes involves substantial investments, but I have never been afraid.” That attitude took her far: in 2003 she started her first practice in the Amsterdam Pijp, called Derma2Care, and later this grew into De Huidkliniek. It is now a national chain with seventeen branches and more than one hundred employees. However, she noticed that this scale also had a downside: “At one point I no longer knew my entire team personally and I myself hardly had any client contact, that felt distant, and that doesn’t suit me.” And so last year she made a fresh start again. With Renske Ypma Skin Clinics, located in Amsterdam-South and Zandvoort,
Personal Touch
What Renske perhaps likes most about her work is the contact with people. “You really build a bond,” she says. That personal contact gives her energy, as does taking care of her team: “I think it is important that everyone enjoys going to work and returns home with energy.” A warm atmosphere and a family feeling are paramount for her. That approach also translates into the treatments themselves. Where you mainly come to a beautician for relaxation, Renske focuses on skin improvement with visible results. “The difference that beautiful skin can make is enormous: if you look in the mirror and you look fresh and radiant, you immediately feel better!”
Stay Curious
Where the profession of skin therapy was still largely unknown territory thirty years ago, Renske today sees a completely different attitude among her clients. “It has become very normal to go to a skin therapist.” And that doesn’t just apply to women, a quarter of her clients are now men and that number is growing every year. To stay ahead, Renske travels the world. “I go to international conferences once or twice a year, where you really see what’s coming.” She also follows training courses in the Netherlands and shares knowledge with colleagues and doctors. Innovation is an important part of her work, and she is often the first to introduce new technologies. For example, her clinic now has the Sofwave, an ultrasound treatment for skin laxity. “The special thing is that you don’t see anything after such a treatment,” she explains. No redness, no recovery time, and yet a lifting effect. It stimulates the skin to produce collagen and elastin itself, making the skin firmer and tighter. “It is of course beautiful to grow old, you turn back the clock a few years but without changing your face.”
Small Steps, Great Happiness
With the two recently opened branches in Zandvoort and Amsterdam-South, Renske is only at the beginning of this new phase. Growth is on the horizon, but step by step: “I want to stay close to my clients and continue to treat them myself, that personal contact, that is what it is all about for me.” When she looks back on her career of three decades, there is mainly gratitude: “My company has always been my fourth child,” she says with a smile. “And what I have learned is that success is not just about getting bigger, but about maintaining pleasure in your work, about the bond with clients and colleagues, that is what I get the most satisfaction from!”
