Unpopular opinion: my skillet turned black in 3 weeks just from frying bacon (pic in comments)
Bought a rough new Lodge at the outlet in Knoxville 3 weeks ago and it looked gray and dry out of the box. I fried bacon in it 5 mornings a week and did nothing else, no scrubbing with soap, no oven magic, just wipe it with a rag while it was still warm. Now it's black and slick, so did the bacon do all the work or did I just get lucky with this pan?
Bacon grease is basically the easiest thing to season a pan with, so 3 weeks of daily frying isn't some miracle. A lot of people do the same thing and get the same result, it's just that nobody posts about it when it works like normal. Not saying you got lucky, just saying this is how cast iron is supposed to act.