Must I lose Font formatting when reapplying style??

I have superscripts (exponents). When I change style of the paragraph from
Normal to Text they remain. However, if I reapply Text style to the
paragraph, the superscripts become normal text. This occurs on the second
application of all styles EXCEPT Normal. Reapplying Normal retains the
superscripts. How do I make the other styles act like this and not lose
character formatting when reapplied?