You can buy curling mousse or hair styling products . Use foam rollers . They don’t need heat and you can wear them while you work around the house . Scrunching and gently braiding your hair when the hair is partially dry .
Yes. Partially dry is what would do it. Humidity can increase "body" and curls in the hair . However this is only temporary; when the hair is drier, it can get straightened out. When braiding, one could add small sticks at every (other) turn of the plait. Old chinese ladies would use cut-up chopsticks for this. A modern variant of this is to dunk the chopstick in acrylic hair-gel, and then add it to the braid. The gel would permeate the fold, and when the hair is drier, and you make a bun or some other hair arrangement, the curls would still stay, and glisten (under the lights) as well.
My daughter used to roll her har in a sock and sleep overnight, to get nice loose curls. The curls can be a bit unpredictable though.