(FORTUNE Magazine) – STANHOME Formerly Stanley Home Products, this company has long peddled cosmetics, household cleaners, mops, and brooms Tupperware-style through the Famous Stanley Hostess Party Plan. But with the pool of hostesses declining as more women choose the office over the living room as the place to make a buck, Stanhome figured it was time for a change. In 1983 the company acquired Enesco, a giftware designer that imports from Asia and sells mostly through card shops and other U.S. retail outlets. Says Chairman H. L. Tower, a marketing veteran of Procter & Gamble, Booz Allen & Hamilton, and General Foods, who joined Stanhome in Westfield, Massachusetts, as CEO in 1978: ''My strategy was to turn around our U.S. businesses and search for the right acquisition. We offer Stanley representatives free gifts if they host a party. So I decided a great gift company would be a synergistic move.'' A smart move too. Enesco now provides nearly half of Stanhome's revenues, which have grown from $277 million in 1983 to $480 million last year, and more than half its profits. One of Enesco's best-selling lines is Precious Moments, porcelain figurines of a cherubic family, featuring youngsters called Mikey and Debbie. Marketed as collectibles, they sell for around $35 each. ''No one will ever get rich on them, but they do appreciate in value,'' says analyst Jerome Ballan of the New York investment firm Fahnestock & Co. A Precious Moments collectors club has more than 300,000 members, but neither the club nor Stanhome officials will say much about the secondary market in the figurines except that it exists without their encouragement. Enesco also holds licenses to make mugs and candy dishes featuring Garfield (the cartoon cat), and to use characters from Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, both celebrating 50th anniversaries this year, on music boxes. In addition, the company offers gewgaws based on the Broadway musical Phantom of the Opera. Stanhome's traditional direct-selling business is flourishing in Europe. Last year it introduced new cosmetic lines in Spain and Italy. The company also runs hostess parties in Latin America, though volatile economic conditions there have taken a toll on operating results. Only 9% of Stanhome's revenues come from direct selling in the U.S., but Tower is still optimistic about the American market, and sales and profits have been up for the past two years. Says he: ''My view is that there will always be a great in-home direct- selling business in the U.S. It just has to change with the times.'' Example: Stanhome recently decided to go after Hispanic customers. Net income has grown at a compound annual rate of 26% since 1984, reaching $40.6 million last year. Return on stockholders' equity has increased from 18% to 29% over the same period. The stock traded recently for $27 a share, 12 times 1989's projected earnings. Ballan says the company is ''a cash cow,'' with little debt. Part of that cash is likely to go for more acquisitions.

MOSCOM CORP. If you have trouble with your office phone, you may doubt that companies like Moscom exist. But this firm in East Rochester, New York, designs and manufactures computer systems that help corporations manage their telephone networks. Among other things, Moscom's systems allow companies to monitor telephone-use patterns, assign costs to the right departments, and keep electronic directories and message centers even when employees are located in different buildings or cities. Analysts expect the $300 million U.S. market for such hardware and software to reach $1.4 billion by 1992. Moscom generally sells its products to major telecommunications corporations, including AT&T, MCI, British Telecom, and Siemens AG, which then distribute the systems under their own names. The five-year-old company first turned a profit in 1987; last year income increased 119% to $2 million on revenues of $10.5 million. The stock recently traded at about $5 a share, eight times projected 1989 earnings.

SILK GREENHOUSE This retailer of artificial foliage got its start in 1982 in an unlikely place: Florida, where the real thing is lush and abundant. The key, according to financial analyst Richard Lilly of JW Charles Securities in Boca Raton, is quality. ''What used to come to mind when I thought of silk flowers was a kind of crap,'' he says. But Silk Greenhouse's fake florae are ''almost impossible to distinguish from real flowers, plants, and trees.'' Most of the foliage comes from Asia, though some assembly takes place in Florida. Last year the company's revenues increased 154% to $55 million, and profits were up 175% to $3.7 million. The stock jumped from $11 a share last fall to a recent $25. Says Lilly, who estimates the artificial plant and accessories market at $5 billion: ''Walking through one of Silk Greenhouse's stores is an overwhelming experience.'' Silk Greenhouse operates 58 outlets, 21 in Florida. The company is expanding along the East Coast, the Midwest, and in Seattle.

SAFETY-KLEEN CORP. Believing that every little bit helps in cleaning up the environment, Safety- Kleen of Elgin, Illinois, specializes in helping small companies that produce slight amounts of hazardous liquid waste handle the stuff. For 20 years the mainstay of Safety-Kleen's business has been selling automotive repair shops machines and solvents that clean the gunk from metal parts. The company treats the solvents so they can be used again. In the past few years Safety-Kleen has moved into recycling other liquids. It now makes chemicals used by dry cleaners (notorious ozone-layer depleters) fit to clean again and re-refines used motor oil. Safety-Kleen's revenues were $417 million last year. Earnings have grown at least 20% a year for the past 18 years, to $42.3 million in 1988. Vishnu Swarup, a security analyst at Prudential-Bache, thinks profits will be up 24% this year. Safety-Kleen's shares are cleaning up too: They traded recently for $27 each, 17 times 1989's estimated earnings.