TradeNames: Malones' fortunes have waxed and waned - but the firm has taken on a new lease of life as manufacturers of environmentally-friendly polishes. Rose Doyle reports

Malones of Dublin, wax polish makers since 1902, have come into their own, again. Shining and scenting the best of furniture in the best of houses for all of that time, the company's ethos and emphasis on the real thing has hit the environmental spot and given it new life.

Before aromatherapy oil, Malones was the reassuring lavender scent in homes across the land.Before stripped pine and the craze for beeswax, they were making that too.

Theirs was the tin of lavender- scented polish which reassured, in homes across the land, that the world was still spinning on its axis. And now, having survived two world wars and other 20th century vicissitudes, Malones second coming is well under way.

The rebranded, if not reborn, Malones is headed - not for the first time - by a woman. How Liz Waters, steeped in the Malones story and committed beyond mere duty, took over in 2002 is a story in itself. But first, and to begin at the beginning, she tells the company's tale.

"It was started in Capel Street 1902 by James Malone and his brother John," she says, producing a wealth of evidence in old ledgers, wage lists, photographs and cuttings as she goes along.

"He made wax polish their primary product and it was an absolutely overnight success. By 1911 they'd outgrown Capel Street and moved to James Gate where they leased a large premises from Guinness. They'd an awful lot of people working for them by then - pre the 19l4 war, they were considered bigger than Guinness. Then disaster struck . . ."

Somewhere around 1914, Malones went out of business. Family lore has it that the company had grown so fast a watchful enough eye hadn't been kept on finances. But before that happened, Liz says "they were exporting to Europe, Africa, Asia, all over the world. We've got receipts from Africa for 1m tins of black boot polish! Malones were an international business and I'd love to know how they made the contacts, how they dealt with the difficulties of exporting."

Down but not out for long, James Malone got enough money together to get the business up and going, to lease back the premises at 111/112/113 James Gate from Guinness.

"Tighter management controls were put in place," Liz says, "and they went from strength to strength, making the same product all the time. But they'd lost a lot of their overseas market so set about developing the UK market. Woolworths became a massive customer, with wax polish piled high on a horse and cart, taken daily to the docks and sent off on the mail boat."

After the first World War came the Great Depression.The company got through the 1930s by concentrating on the Irish market. "All the big old houses in Ireland had wooden floors, stairs and furniture then," Liz points out. "But then came the second World War and the price of tin shot up."

Undaunted, James Malone got together a committee of the country's polish manufacturers. About 10 in number they included Punch and Reckits (Punch is the only other polish company still in existence) and agreed there would be no price increases. "Everyone held with this throughout the war although there was no export market, obviously," Liz says. "Malones concentrated on becoming a household name and really grew in Ireland."

Things weren't easy post-war either, with export tariffs making polish expensive and something of a luxury item. But it was a necessity and sales continued strong until the late 1950s, around which time the fate of his three daughters caused James Malone to give some thought to continuity, if not mortality.

He had married Teresa Waters from Raheen, Co Kildare and they were parents to Teresa (Terry) Kathleen and Doone. Tom Waters, Teresa's brother, was brought in to help run things and, in 1962, the company set up in a new polish factory behind the family's big old house at 726 South Circular Road.

"The house is still there, with the polish factory at the end of the garden," Liz explains, "though it's to be sold and the move made to modern premises. James Malone died in 1964 and Tom Waters became the man in the business, supervising sales. Terry ran the office, helped by Kathleen who died quite young. A cousin, Bridget (Bid) Waters moved in to help. The big products were still wax lavender polish and antiseptic polish. There were no anti-bacterial cleaners at the time so this last had big appeal."

Things went well for the company through the 1960s and 1970s but by the 1980s the company was slowing down. "They were still supplying supermarkets like H Williams, Dunnes, Quinnsworth and Superquinn," Liz says, "but by then Terry, Tom and Bid had become too old to develop and change the business.

"They had come from the era of tea parties on great tables and were all mad about horses and were a part of the racing confraternity. The business slowly went down but they didn't give up. When Tom Waters died in 1989, aunts Terry Malone and Bridget Waters kept things going, two old ladies running a business from a little office, rattling around in a big old house, taking phone calls and hand writing ledgers while the polish was still being made by other old ladies in the factory at the end of the garden. They were wonderful, old fashioned and proud of their wax polishes and never believing in aerosols. We still have all of the old polish recipe books."

Other books, immaculately kept in Terry Malone's handwriting, tell a history of their own. The weekly wages bill in 1943 was 15.11.0d. In 1948, Tom Waters was paid 6.10.0d, M Jones 4.5.0d and M Stevens was on 1.4.6d. per week. Almost 10 years later, in 1957, one Patsy Dunne's weekly wage was 3.6.6d while Nellie Byrne got 3.2.6d.

"By the end of the 1990s they were selling practically nothing," Liz says. "The supermarkets would still ring up to place orders but Terry and Bid were finding it harder to manage things. They'd lost sales because they didn't want to compromise and go for the aerosol/convenience market. Theirs were artisan polishes, made by hand, with old ladies who'd been with them God knows how long pouring handmade wax . I started to help out because they wanted someone to take over, to see if there was the potential to build things up again. I could see that the days of wax polish in the tin market was gone, that the company needed to urgently develop new products."

Bridget Waters died in the millennium year, her cousin Teresa (Terry) Malone died, aged 90, in 2002. Liz Waters, who'd married into the family when she wed Tom Waters, took over the company the same year.

"I was in a position to evaluate the situation because I'd been helping out," she explains, minimising the leap made by an arts graduate and mother of four into business. "What I saw as hugely valuable was the brand name and the fact that the supermarkets still wanted Malones polishes. What was needed were new products in line with the company's old ethos of being environmentally-friendly.

"It's a David and Goliath battle, I know, given that the other polish companies are huge. I wanted all the new products to be solvent-free and without silicones, which coat floors."

Malones new products are all of those things: just one among their woodcare range is their pure liquid wax polish (with carnuba) which has neither solvents, CFCs nor silicone - exactly as the old wax polish used be and with same traditional smell. You can still buy their lavender or damask rose polishes in tins, or Malones beeswax with genuine turpentine.

Things are going really well, Liz says. "The first to take us up was Superquinn. Then Tesco came on board and took two of our products. All of the multiples have been incredibly supportive of us as an Irish company. We sell to Dunnes, Londis, Spar, Nolans Supermarket in Clontarf and Churchtown Stores. We've got 10 new employees. The wonderful thing is that Malones polish, a product used in places like Clongowes College andthe oldest houses in Ireland, is now selling in Europe's newest and largest shopping centre in Dundrum."