I'm not certain I'm curly enough to give you valuable advice, but I see from your profile that you have some waves/wurls, too, so I'll give it a shot!
My hair has been waist-length or longer for most of my life; I don't have a great sense of how long it took to grow out to that point since all of that happened while I was a kid. Presently it's below the knee. With my texture (2c/3a), the weight pulls out a good deal of texture. I have one lock at the side of my hairline that I keep trimmed to collarbone length or so, and it always forms a ringlet; the bulk of my hair, however, is pretty straight-looking down to the mid-back, at which point it starts wurling again. I also have many, many layers of henna on my hair and each application knocks the texture down a peg for a few months. I applied henna about a week or so ago, and I'd say it took most of my hair from a 3a back down to a 2b. The texture will gradually creep back in over the coming months as the henna wears off ( ;
I don't see any reason to trim while growing out, presuming you're pleased with your current hemline (pleased with the shape of it, I mean, not necessarily the condition). I search-and-destroy when I start noticing enough split ends to bother me (maybe every few months?), but have not had an overall trim in a few years. Getting a hemline I was really pleased with via Faye's method was certainly a factor in not trimming my hair over that period of time. Otherwise I expect I would have trimmed yearly or so and would still be at mid-thigh.
In terms of care, I CO-wash scalp to tips on Sundays and shampoo when I feel like I need it (very rarely these days). I do a rough finger detangle approximately daily, but only do a full detangling with a brush during my weekly wash, after the conditioner has sat on my head for a while and gotten properly slippy. I usually braid my hair after washing and transition to a combination of buns and braids later in the week. If I do want to wear my hair down for a while, though, I let my hair dry for maybe thirty minutes or so after washing, separate and "plop" the locks, and let it dry loose. The texture pops right back in with that kind of treatment. Another trick I use mid-week is to wet down just the very bottom part of my hair, finger-curl it, and let it re-dry. That puts a lot more life into the ends after they have started to relax in the days following a wash.
One distinction between what my hair seems to like and what most "true" curlies report works that my hair is really intolerant of leave-ins. If I add anything to my hair that I don't rinse out thoroughly, including oils, it separates out into strands rather than locks and becomes quite limp. I think the extra weight of the leave-in might overwhelm it. Perhaps something to try since you're dealing with a mixture of hair types? I do pre-oil my hair before washes since it makes my hair a little softer/easier to detangle in the coming week, but if I'm going to wear it down and textured I skip that step. Even the rinse-out oil seems to encourage my hair to behave like one body rather than dividing into separate locks.
Products: Aussie as my main conditioner, cut with whatever is on sale at the drugstore/Brazilian grocery; fenugreek tea after rinsing (also helps with detangling throughout the week); Suave Clarifying shampoo a couple times a year; cooking oil from my kitchen for pre-poo soaks, but again that seems to make my hair less textured so I wouldn't recommend it for you if you're after maximum curl.
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