Welcome to 4twentysix — a blog about personal growth + real skincare, from someone unlearning all the things I thought I was supposed to be.
Hi! I’m Erica and my birthday is April 26th. I’ve always loved my birthday, even though I don’t celebrate it like some people do. Babies get celebrated just for showing up — not for what they’ve done or who they know, just for being alive. Somewhere along the way, most of us stop getting that kind of unconditional welcome. This blog is my way of giving it back to myself, one post at a time.
I write about the messy, real work of self-awareness and personal growth — because if something isn’t growing, it’s slowly dying, and I refuse to let that be me. That’s meant unlearning a lot of things I picked up from family patterns, past relationships, and just trying to be the “cool,” go-with-the-flow version of myself instead of the real one. It’s meant sitting with the parts of myself I don’t love yet. It’s meant rebuilding my confidence — quietly, and powerfully — after years of losing pieces of myself without noticing, and figuring out what soul love actually looks like when no one’s watching.
The same unlearning showed up unexpectedly somewhere else: my skin. Learning to care for your skin is eerily similar to caring for your soul. First, you have to unlearn all the rules ‘they’ hand you and figure out what actually works for YOU. So far, I’ve learned three principles are the same across the board: consistency, patience, and not comparing your process to anyone else’s.
Healing isn’t linear and it isn’t always pretty, yet it’s been the most interesting, unexpected, sometimes hilarious journey of my life. My hope is that reading what I’ve learned and unlearned helps you get back to your own naked soul — the one you had on the day you were born, before the world started telling you who to be.
Thanks for being here. Have fun, friend!
love always,
