A family-owned lice treatment service in the Portland area
The AirAllé is the FDA-cleared medical device at the center of every Lice Charmers Lice Clinic appointment. It is what makes a single-visit, chemical-free approach possible, and it is the reason families do not have to plan around the multi-week treatment schedules that drugstore products require. This page explains what the AirAllé actually does and how the rest of the appointment fits around it.
Head lice carry a social stigma that often outweighs their actual medical significance. Lice Charmers Lice Clinic technicians are trained to normalize the experience, to treat clients with the dignity the situation deserves, and to defuse the panic that often surrounds an infestation. Many families arrive feeling embarrassed about the situation, and the calm tone of the clinic is something reviewers mention regularly. The goal is to handle the appointment with the same neutral professionalism a family would expect at any routine medical visit.
For Portland-area families who prefer to stay home, Lice Charmers Lice Clinic also offers mobile in-home appointments. The technician arrives with the AirAllé device and provides the same professional treatment in the family's living room. Families with multiple children often choose mobile because everyone can be treated in one block of time without the logistics of getting several kids to a clinic. The single-visit promise holds for mobile appointments just as it does at the clinics.
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.
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.
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.
Treatment at Lice Charmers Lice Clinic costs roughly $189 to $260 per person depending mostly on hair length. Itemized receipts are issued for families filing FSA, HSA, or insurance claims, and many families recover some portion of the cost through their plan. The clinic also provides free professional head checks for parents who are not yet sure whether their child actually has lice, which is particularly useful when a school sends home an exposure notice but the parent has not been able to confirm anything visually.
No pesticides are involved at any point in a Lice Charmers Lice Clinic appointment. The treatment relies entirely on heated air and physical comb-out work, which matters to families who would rather not apply chemicals like permethrin to a child's scalp. This becomes more important every year, as head lice populations have developed widespread resistance to the active ingredients in drugstore products. The Lice Charmers approach sidesteps that resistance problem entirely by using physical dehydration rather than a chemical that the lice may have already evolved past.
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.
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.
More than 200 five-star reviews in the Portland market reflect a steady track record of one-visit resolutions and a calm, knowledgeable clinic team. The reviews tend to share a common arc: families arrive frustrated and embarrassed after multiple drugstore attempts, and leave a couple of hours later with the problem solved. Many reviewers also call out the educational portion of the visit, where technicians explain how lice actually transmit and what household cleaning genuinely needs to happen afterward.