Gilly and her husband, Chris, moved to a sheep farm 2 hours south East of Perth WA, Australia with their 3 children, the family dog and their furniture.

“Gilly loved her French Polished Georgian Antiques and always polished them to prevent them drying out in the hot Australian Summers. Through the 70s she would always buy polish (and Maldon Salt - as they lived near Maldon) whenever she returned to the UK to see her parents.” - Alice (Gilly’s daughter). 

1978

The Farm was sold in 1978 and Gilly and Chris moved to Mundaring. Shortly after arriving in Mundaring Gilly was given a recipe by a friend, when Gilly mentioned how, even the wax she was having to buy in England, was quite hard work for regular polishing.

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Gilly herself, made our first Cream Polish derived from a 150 year old English polish recipe. The recipe was fine tuned and tweaked to Gilly's liking. Shortly after friends and family were requesting some for their own furniture.

1983

Gilly began hand making Lemon and Lavender cream polish commerically in the kitchen of their Mundaring home. Gilly registered the business as 'Gilly Stephenson's Old Fashioned Furniture Polish.' Fairly quickly a spare room was fitted out with shelving all around and became the workplace for the next few years.

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Gilly's first store to stock her products was Stableyard Antiques in Guildford WA, they made their first order 12/11/1983.

1984

The first eastern states store was  Marlene’s Antiques, who made their first order on 31/07/1984. Unfortunately the truck caught fire on the way over losing the entire order, they made a follow up order on the 07/08/1984 that was successfully delivered.

1987

Sara (Gilly’s niece) designs the famous Bee, over the years the Bee has changed slightly but it is mostly the same on our packaging today.

1988

In 1988 Gilly and Chris did their first antique trade show -The Giant Perth Antiques Fair by Carter’s. They continued attending many antique trade shows leading into the 90s where they met many antique dealers and restorers. It was a great chance to showcase their products to the trade and end users.

1989-1991

Gilly adds new products to the range - Wood and leather in 1989, Polish reviver and cleaner, Carnauba Polish in 1990 followed by Gun Polish and Scratch Cover for Dark Wood in 1991.

1992

After almost 10 years of operating in their Mundaring home, Gilly and Chris moved the manufacturing to a factory unit in the new Mundaring Industrial Area, leaving only the office and special lines to be made at the House.

1994

Orange Oil was added to the range - the first Australian made Orange Oil in Australia- formulated by Gilly and her daughter Alice, after a lot of requests for a furniture oil.  At the time Alice had taken a semester off uni to work at Gilly’s while pregnant with her 3rd son Culver who now runs the Operations of Gilly’s today. 

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Gilly’s products entered Classique Imports, BBC Hardware in WA and Bunnings in WA where we are still stocked today.

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Gilly’s daughter, Alice, registers a business, Terrafloor Care, to distribute TerraFloor Polish (larger sizes of Wood ‘n Leather)  manufactured by Gilly’s.

1998

New products are added to the range: Pine Darkener and Floor Polish.

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Gilly’s entered BBC Hardware in the Eastern states - which was later purchased by Bunnings.

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Alice’s eldest daughter, Melissa, (Gilly and Chris’s eldest grandchild) begins working part time at Gilly’s at 16 years old, whilst studying part time at TAFE.

2000

New products are added to the range: Coloured waxes for Pine furniture - Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Beeswax Filler Sticks 6 multi coloured packs and Woodturner sticks 2pks.

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Gilly’s daughter Alice Stephenson joins the business - she is still with us today as the Director. Gilly and Chris were looking for someone else part time to replace Melissa. Alice, upon learning she was expecting a baby, and unable to continue her job as Area Manager, which required calling on customers all week, offers to take up the position for a year.

2001

Leather care is added to the range.

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Bunnings purchases BBC Hardware stores across Australia. Our products having already been in Bunnings WA and BBC Hardware nationally now moved across to all Bunnings stores nationally under the new ownership.

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‘It’s so easy to use a baby could use it’ advertisement of Alice’s youngest daughter in Carter’s magazine (Gilly and Chris’s granddaughter) Phoebe polishing the dining room table.

2002-2003

New products are added to the Gilly Stephenson’s range Carnauba Wax flakes and Bushmans Gloss Stain.

In 2003, after 20 years growing the business, and caring for her mother, who had arrived from the UK in 1986, and battling ongoing health issues herself, Gilly retired, leaving Chris and Alice to continue the business with the help of their staff.

2004

New product added to the range: ‘Lemon Oil’ now known as ‘Lemon Chopping Board Oil’.

2008

Experiments for an Orange Cream begin, but, although food safe, it didn’t have the same sheen as the other Cream Polishes. It did, however, go to market later in 2013.

June of 2010 Gilly’s husband Chris retired from the business and moved down to Albany where they had always holidayed whilst living on the farm. Alice continued the day-to-day running of the business with the help of Sara, Gilly’s niece, and their staff.

2011

Alice’s son Culver (Gilly and Chris’s grandson) begins working at the business part time while studying at University. He is still here at Gilly’s today now in the role of Operations Manager.

2013

In 2013 Orange cream was released to the market, as the company looks to form a food safe range. This would later become Food Safe Wax in 2017.

2014

Liquid Beeswax was added to the range, another food safe finish.

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In 2014 Alice flew east to attend the AAADA Sydney and Melbourne Shows, and also took the range to the Adelaide Antique Fairs in 2015 and 2016.

2015

For our current antique traders a line of products within our range is produced with the original style labelling of 32 years prior when Gilly first sold in the antique trade.

2016

We introduced our food safe Chopping Board Oils to the range, available in 3 varieties: Citrus Beeswax, Orange and Lemon.

2017

After years of perfecting we introduced our Food Safe Wax to the market.

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In 2017 Gilly’s food safe products landed in Kitchen Warehouse stores across Australia where they are still stocked today.

2019

July 2019 Gilly’s leaves Mundaring and moves to Malaga where the office and manufacturing continues today. Culver moves into the position of Operational Manager.

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New products added to the range: Kitchen Bench Oil and Alfresco Timber Oil.

2020

We introduced our Pure Tung Oil to the market.

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‘Gilly’s Waxes & Polishes’ rebrands to ‘Gilly’s Australia’

2021

We added ‘Make Beautiful sustainable’ to our packaging, written in Gilly’s handwriting. Sara used a variety of old sources of Gilly’s handwriting to create our transformative purpose, which represents Gilly’s as a brand.

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Gilly’s Orange Oil and Liquid Beeswax land in Home Pro Hardware stores across Thailand.

2022

Gilly’s products enter Bunnings New Zealand.

2023

New products added to the range: Lime Wax and Black Wax.

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Gilly’s acquires Chalk paint business Mezzie and Frank.