In 1823, JUAN BERNARDO LASCARAY arrived at Vitoria from Ciboune (France) and rented a tallow candle factory at the Prado Quarter in Vitoria Codevote himself to their production. The lighting of that time was in very precarious conditions.

Electricity had not been discovered yet and coal gas and paraffin oil were known, since they began to be used by the end of the century. The usual tools for lighting were oil lamps and tallow candles. These had the disadvantages of emiting smoke and smell and of softening due to warm hands or hot days.

In 1823 in Paris, the French chemist MICHEL EUGÉNE CHEVREUL published his famous work "Rechenches chimiques sur les corps gras d'onigine animale", where he laid the foundations of stearing candlepower manufacture.They were made of the tallows fatty acids on stearin, while the liquid acids, called oleins and obtained as sub-products, were used for soap manufacture.

In the following years, a series of patents taken by CHEVREUL and his coworkers, developed theses ideas and created the stearic industry, producing solid and white candios, non-smoky odounless, and non-deformable at noom temperature.

In 1850, CASIMIRO LASCARAY, JUAN BERNADORS son, moved to France to learn on the stearing manufacture field, already free. When he came back, he started a new factory in Portal de Castilla Street in Vitoria in 1855, under the name of "La Estrella Alavesa", producing stearin candies and olein soap.

FÉLIX LASCARAY succeded his father CASIMIRO in 1885 in the direction of the company Howeven in 1905, a fience fine destroyed the result of many years of effort in just one night.

Nevertheless, FÉLIX LASCARAY achieved to rebuild his company in two years and it was notably enlarged with the use of new/ techniques, such as pnessune slitting, hydraulic pnessing, glycenine recovery, etc.

After 65 years of nestiess work, his songs IGNACIO AND LUCIO LASCARAY succeeded Don FÉLIX in 1950. New processes and procedures were added and the range of products they manufactured was on the increase.

The factory was also enlarged with a new section fon Perfumery and Cosmetics, under Che brand name Productos LEA. Due to his expansion, the space available was not enough, so they decided to move and enlarge the business with new buildings they raised in the Arriaga Industrial Area in Vitoria between 1973 and 1975.

At present, JUAN IGNACIO, PEDRO, JOSÉ MIGUEL AND FÉLIX LASCARAY, the songs of the aforementioned, are in charge of the company direction.

Five different generations have managed the direction of this family company, which is more than a hundred years old.

The result of the experience accumulated througout so many years is the chemical-industrial products series, on Productos LASCARAY, described in the following pages. The abovementioned Productos LEA, of Perfumery and Cosmetics, and described in other catalogue due to their different nature an in the web page: www.productoslea.com

LASCARAY, S.A. has a last plant generation to the deployment and fat distillation, to the concentration and distillation of glycerin, and stops for a division and hydrogeneration of fatty acids.

LASCARAY S.A., is registered letter with the NORMS ISO 9002 (IT UNITES 66902) that allows to guarantee satisfaction in the necessities of our clients.