Few household problems generate more stress than a head lice outbreak. Lice Charmers Lice Clinic was built to take that stress off Portland-area families' shoulders with a single-visit treatment that resolves the infestation in one appointment, without the multi-week schedules drugstore products typically require. This page walks through how the clinic operates and why the single-visit approach works where over-the-counter products often do not.
Over 200 five-star reviews from Portland-area families point to the same pattern: families arrive stressed and leave with the problem resolved in one appointment. Reviewers consistently mention the calm, non-judgmental tone of the staff, the speed of the treatment, and the practical guidance they take home. The free head check service also gets mentioned often, as it lets parents confirm whether there is actually a problem before committing to a full appointment, particularly after a school exposure notice.
Pricing for full treatment at Lice Charmers Lice Clinic ranges from approximately $189 to $260 depending on hair length and other factors. Itemized receipts are provided to support FSA, HSA, and most health insurance reimbursement claims. Free professional head checks are also available for families who want a confirmation before committing to full treatment, which can be useful after a school exposure notice when nobody is quite sure yet whether there is actually an active infestation in the family.
Lice Charmers Lice Clinic relies on the AirAllé, an FDA-cleared medical device that uses precisely controlled heated air to kill both lice and their eggs through dehydration. A standard appointment takes about 90 minutes and resolves the infestation in one visit. The heated-air phase is followed by a thorough comb-out, which removes the dead lice and any remaining nit casings from the hair. By the time the family leaves the clinic, the active problem is generally resolved, with no follow-up treatment required.
Family ownership matters to the founders of Lice Charmers Lice Clinic, Alexis Charriere and Conor Duggan, who started the clinic in June 2017 and still run the operation today. The clinic grew from a single Portland location into a two-clinic operation, supplemented by a mobile service that covers the broader Portland metro area. Through every stage of that growth, the original commitment to single-visit, chemical-free treatment has remained consistent, as has the founders' direct involvement in the day-to-day work.
Lice Charmers Lice Clinic operates two brick-and-mortar locations in the Portland area, a Portland clinic on SE Gladstone Street and a Beaverton clinic serving the west side of the metro area. Both clinics keep the same hours: 7am to 8pm, every day of the year, including weekends and holidays. The wide hours exist intentionally, because lice problems rarely strike at convenient times. A school nurse calls on a Friday afternoon, or a parent finds lice the night before a family vacation, and the clinic needs to be reachable.
The Lice Charmers Lice Clinic calm tone is a deliberate feature of how the clinic operates. Many families arrive embarrassed or anxious, and the staff are trained to take the stigma out of the situation and address it as the routine medical issue it really is. The clinic operates on the premise that the social discomfort around head lice is more harmful and more persistent than the lice themselves, and that a professional, non-judgmental visit can do as much to relieve a family as the treatment does.
Pesticides are not part of the process at Lice Charmers Lice Clinic. The treatment is purely heated air followed by careful comb-out, which sidesteps the resistance issues that have made drugstore lice products unreliable over recent decades. Parents who want to avoid putting permethrin or pyrethrins on a child's scalp often choose the clinic specifically for this reason. The treatment is also free of the smell, mess, and prolonged application time that come with chemical shampoos sold for home use.
Mobile in-home service is available across the Portland metro area for families who would rather not bring a child to a clinic. A certified technician brings the AirAllé device and all supplies to the home and provides the same single-visit treatment in a familiar setting. The mobile option is particularly popular with families who have multiple children to treat at once, families with very young kids who would struggle through a clinic visit, and families who simply prefer the privacy of an at-home appointment.
The clinic offers free head checks for parents who are not sure whether an infestation is actually present. This is especially helpful after the school nurse sends a note home and nobody is certain yet what is going on. The check itself takes about five minutes per person and uses the same professional lighting and inspection technique the clinic uses for full treatment intakes. Families who turn out not to have lice leave with confirmation and peace of mind, with no obligation and no fee.
Lice Charmers Lice Clinic technicians spend time on education during each visit. Families leave with practical understanding of how lice actually spread, what really needs to be cleaned at home, and how to monitor for any return of the problem in the days ahead. Many parents arrive with anxiety-driven plans to bag every stuffed animal in the house and wash every fabric on hot, then learn from the technician that very little of that is actually necessary. The educational element regularly comes up in customer reviews.
When the school nurse calls about head lice, most Portland-area families' first instinct is a drugstore run. The problem is that over-the-counter lice products have lost their effectiveness against modern lice populations, which have developed widespread resistance to permethrin and pyrethrins, the active ingredients in most drugstore shampoos. Families end up applying the same product two or three times to a child's scalp without ever fully resolving the problem, then call Lice Charmers Lice Clinic out of frustration with the failed drugstore approach.