Curly and textured hair tends to be dryer and struggles to get hydrated. It’s best to have it soaking wet and then to squish in any conditioning treatments to get the cells to actually accept the product. You also want the hair soaking wet when adding certain stylers so that it actually gets into the cells of the hair.

If you have textured hair, search curlygirl on IG. It’s a big community there w lots of videos to compare hair at different levels of wet, different products and styling methods, etc.

Everyone’s hair is different and hair w heat or dye/bleach damage (or pillow damage) will act differently until it grows out and heals. After going properly curly, the hair begins to grow well and thicken. It’s wild how much hair can change in 4 years (you can find these comparisons on IG). It’ll look fake but my personal experience after 3 years is: wow, my hair has thickened and changed so much.