Wearing a helmet will not hurt your dreads. Your dreads may be a little flat after you take the helmet off, but they will poof back up after you wash them. You may need to get a larger one that your dreads will fit in.

Wash it out using hot/warm water, it will take a washing or two to get it all out.

You can ponytail, pigtail, or braid them. You can wrap them in hemp, ribbons, and string. You can dye them different colors. Wear a tam, crown, headband, bandana, toque, or those head wraps. You can put beads, peyote stitches, or Pyrex in too.

Elastics are really good for dreads, they help the dreads form the way you want them to and keep loose hairs in. And if you palm roll them while you have them in it will actually dread the hair.

What about flat squished dreads?

There are two kinds of flat dreads

1. Dreads that were made using rectangular sections, there's really nothing you can do to make these dreads round, because they start out flat. If you want round dreads section the dread into two sections at the roots using a string, and they will start growing round.

2. Helmet/hat/sleep head dreads- these can be poofed back up by palm rolling or washing.

Can I trim my dreads? How do I do it?

It's not really a good idea, because the dread will start to unravel because the hair that was holding the knots together before is gone. You will have to wait for the tip to lock up again and it's just a pain in the arse. But if you are going to do it the best way to cut it is like a flower, cut it at an angle and then put a rubber band around the tip and rub the tip against the palm of your hand everyday for about 2 days and then take the rubber band out.

There are two types of loose hairs:
Root loose hairs
You should twist them into a ball and thread them through the root of your dread. Put a rubber band around the roots, do not make the rubber band to tight, just snug, if it is to tight the hairs will not be able to move to knot into the dread. Then use the clockwise rubbing technique and rub the dread against your scalp. Put a little bit of wax on the dread and work it into the root to help hold things together.

Mid-dread loose hairs
The best thing to do is get a dental floss threader and thread the hair through the middle of the dread. Then add a little wax to the dread and start palm rolling.

I tried it once, and I didn't like the way my hair looked afterward, it looked really unhealthy and singed, a lot of the hair broke off, and it smelled so bad. The tips didn't have the blunt look I was looking for either they just looked fried. If you are going to do it make sure you don't have any wax or products in your hair, most hair products are very flammable. But I got the best results just rolling the tips in my palms.