La Crescenta salon specializes in lice removal
Of all the local salons, none is quite like the one that Carrie Charles operates in La Crescenta.
Opened in April 2014, her business, called Buggies, is a lice-removal salon.
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The Sparr Heights resident was inspired to open the salon after her now 6-year-old grandson caught lice in his preschool class at age 3.
Before long, several members of his family had lice, including Charles. Hundreds of dollars later, and with help from a lice-removal salon they all visited in Burbank, the lice were gone.
“We haven’t had it since,” she said.
At the time, the salon where Charles and her family went to for help needed help itself — with staffing.
Charles had been looking for part-time work. Although she wasn’t sure she was up for the job at first, she agreed.
“You get used to it, and I don’t get freaked out very often,” she said.
After learning the trade, she set up her own affordable, mobile business and began driving as far away as Beverly Hills and Brentwood to remove lice from kids in their own homes.
After the driving began to take a toll, she made plans to open her own shop near her home.
She uses only nontoxic, natural ingredients, such as essential oils including cedar wood, peppermint or tee-tree oil, when she’s treating hair.
When children are being treated, they face a television where they have access to any number of shows and cartoons.
Preschoolers are among her most common clients, although she sees teens and adults, too, with the busiest time of the year about two to three weeks after the school year begins, when children have recently returned from vacation or camp.
Lice is often spread from person to person, and young children are regular victims because they play so closely with one another, she said.
“You get a bug on you — you don’t feel it. They start laying eggs, so in about a week, they’ll start hatching. And when they start biting, the kids start itching,” Charles said.
The salon’s name was inspired by her grandson, whose name is Colston Charles, but his nickname is “Buggie,” taken from a cartoon featuring a mother spider who calls all of her children buggies.
“My daughter-in-law called him Buggie. When I started this, I thought, he’s the founder. I’m calling it after him,” she said.
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
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