Models of allergic airway disease have been developed in several animal species, but murine models are particularly attractive due to their low cost, ready availability, and a well characterized immune system of these animals. To elucidate the pathophysiology of allergic asthma and to test novel treatment strategies, mouse models of asthma exploring adjuvants for sensitization are commonly used in experimental conditions. However, adjuvant asthma models may not be suitable for testing of adjuvant-containing medications because adjuvant itself (e.g. aluminum hydroxide) enhances the level of sensitization and at the same time can induce distress in the animals that in turn do not contribute enough for the adequacy of experimental asthma model in human asthma condition. Therefore we compare two protocols for the modeling of allergic asthma. One group of mice was sensitized three times in a two-week interval by intraperitoneal injections with ovalbumin mixed with aluminum hydroxide, while the another one received three subcutaneous injections of ovalbumin alone. Two weeks later, mice in both groups were intranasally challenged with ovalbumin three times. It was found that both groups demonstrated similar major features of acute allergic asthma such as increased airway hyper-reactivity (AHR) and eosinophil-rich airway inflammation. In addition to increased AHR, we observed elevated nasal hyper-reactivity that indicates the presence of not only asthma features, but also allergic rhinitis symptoms. Moreover, the adjuvant-free protocol provided a stronger sensitization in comparison to the adjuvant model that was confirmed by the detection of OVA-specific IgE in sera. We consider that the proposed adjuvant-free model of asthma is advantageous in being more realistic in terms of reflecting human disease pathogenesis and more convenient for the studies of novel therapeutic approaches including adjuvant-containing drugs.