Magento – How to set custom created attribute value for product

I have a batch of products, which I need to add custom products for.
To do so, I have created a file in the root directory to call as import functionality.

Here, I created my own class to handle all the stuff in:
So I create a Attribute Set, a group and attributes, place the attributes in the group and the group in the Attribute set and assign the attributeSet to the Product.
This part works flawlessly, I can confirm this in the management tool.

The next part works fine too: adding the options to the attributes.
Although probably not the best code, it works flawlessly to add the options to the attributes.
Again, I can confirm this in the attributes and product management tool.

However, I now want to set the selected value for the attributes for my product.
This I've been messing with for over 5 hours now without any success whatsoever:
All I want is the the added attributes, which come from an external source e.g. 'special_color' and 'special_name' actually are set for the given product to 'green' and 'hardwood'.

But whatever I've tried, in the product management page, they all show nicely, as drop-down selections to be assigned manually, but not 1 set to the correct value for that attribute.

Below my function, Ive commented where it stopped working (basically just $product->setData):

function setOrAddOptionAttribute($arg_attribute, $arg_value, $product, $setid) {
    $attribute_model = Mage::getModel('eav/entity_attribute');
    $attribute_options_model = Mage::getModel('eav/entity_attribute_source_table');

    $attribute_code = $attribute_model->getIdByCode('catalog_product', $arg_attribute);
    $attribute = $attribute_model->load($attribute_code);

    $attribute_options_model->setAttribute($attribute);
    $options = $attribute_options_model->getAllOptions(false);

    // determine if this option exists
    $value_exists = false;
    $option_id = false;
    foreach($options as $option) {
        if ($option['label'] == $arg_value) {
            $option_id = $option['value'];
            $value_exists = true;
            echo 'EXIST!!!!! '.$arg_value . ' == '.$option_id;
            break;
        }
    }

    // if this option does not exist, add it.
    if (!$value_exists) {
        $attribute->setData('option', array(
            'value' => array(
                'option' => array($arg_value,$arg_value)
            )
        ));
        $attribute->save();
    }

    //experimental: get the value id for justcreated item
    $options = $attribute_options_model->getAllOptions(true);
    foreach($options as $option) {
        if ($option['label'] == $arg_value) {
            $option_id = $option['value'];
            break;
        }
    }

    echo '$product->setData($attribute->getId() ['.$attribute->getId().'], $option_id['.$option_id.'])';
    if($option_id){
        /* THIS TINY PART WONT WORK: */
     //   $product->load($product->getId());
        $product->setData($attribute->getId(), $option_id);
        $product->save();
    }
}

The $product that is passed into the setOrAddOptionAttribute function, originates from a loop with this data:

function getProducts(){
    return Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection()->addAttributeToSelect(array('name','ean','sku'));
}

I've tried using the setData with the attribute_code ($arg_attribute) and actual value ($arg_value) as strings, got the appropriate Id's for them, and even combined them.
I also tried loading the product again but that doesn't change anything either.

I could use some serious help with this, please!
Even if it's just what to insert into the $product->setData? (id's, names, code)?

To me it seems the data is correctly set in the $product, considering I tried using

$product->setData('my_attribute_name_here', 'myvalue')

or

$product->setMyAttributeNameHere('myvalue')

and to fetch the set value using $product->getMyAttributeNameHere() to verify, which returns my set data.
However, it won't save to database.

I tried $product->save();
aswel as $product->getResource()->saveAttribute($product, $arg_attribute);

Nothing works tho, any suggestions?

[SOLVED]
Apparently doing a separate product load in the $products loop solved the problem.

foreach($products as $product) {
  $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($product->getEntityId());
  ...
}