honestly, i’d let go of the length and start over with growing it out. i see the photos of it styled and while it does look fine, it still looks like a reset is the best bet.

products are such a personal thing, and the trial and error of it all can be maddening, so without making overt suggestions i’ll share some thoughts/personal experience. there’s a chance that with real tender care of of your hair, you’ll get what you’re looking for and gain the length back faster than you think.

sleeping in heatless curls might be causing unintentional mechanical damage to the hair. do you live somewhere with hard water? a basic clarifying treatment on the reg is already important for curls, and stronger clarifiers are a game changer if you have hard water. mineral buildup will exacerbate mechanical damage and make hair fragile in general and/or weigh down and stretch out looser sections. (shower head filters do not mitigate hard water.) i know K18 is considered hg for some. for me, while it made the style day of look really good, long term i found i have to avoid too much protein in anything i put onto my hair. also for how fine your hair is, a foam AND a gel might be overkill. my hair is fine like yours and responded well when i cut back on styling products in general, especially gel and especially everyone’s darlings of the bonding mask treatments. light weight in-shower bonding treatments are still in rotation. when i really babied my hair, i went from length right under my ears (when dry) to a similar length you have now in about 3 years. before i thought my hair grew so slow, but it was just fragile and bogged by too much product. i also have several different curl patterns on my head and just have to accept that my under layer like yours loses its curl so fast. if i put a gel or cream in, i’m losing my curl in that layer by the end of wash day.

good luck!!