What is Melt all about? Start by watching this video
MELT Video Series
Online Video Streaming
1. Every Relationship Deserves a Little Bit of Massage
We believe you deserve a massage. So does your partner. And when you massage each other, it has been proven that it will supercharge your intimacy, build stronger trust and foster a deeper connection. Doesn’t your relationship deserve all that? Yes. Yes, it does.
2. Simplicity is Everything
You probably already give each other a little back rub every now and then. We’re not about getting fancy – we’re just showing you how to give better back rubs, so you can last longer and avoid achy thumbs.
Our techniques aren’t complicated, we don’t use tricky terminology. It’s massage, designed for beginners to learn in the home. That’s is. Simple instructions for a beautiful massage.
3. No Sensitive Ponytail Men
We know massage has a “crunchy granola” reputation, but we are not those people. Nothing about Melt is weird, or icky, or cringe-worthy, nor will it ever make you feel uncomfortable to watch. Promise.
4. Date Night, Date Night, Date Night
We believe couples should keep dating each other right through their relationship. Regular date nights are the cornerstone to any connected union. That’s why you’ll see us write so much about them on this website. It’s true, we are totally biased, but we really do think giving each other a massage for the night is a perfect stay home date idea. But aside from that, we always have and always will champion date night in all forms and provide you with more (and more, and more) date ideas. Check our blog out for date night inspiration.
Denis Merkas, Massage Therapist
Hi, I’m Denis and perhaps the most defining characteristic of my career is that I’ve never had a full time job in my life. Perhaps it’s a problem with authority? Who knows. Either way, massage is all I really know, and it’s the one thing I can confidently say I’m an expert in, and that is only because of the sheer amount of hours I have spent both training in and practicing massage.
My first qualification was a degree in Acupuncture. While I was still at university, I decided to also study remedial massage. When I graduated in 2000, I immediately started up my own clinic. I learned a lot of lessons. I shut down the clinic and evolved my business to a massage company called Merkas Health, servicing Melbourne’s leading hotels (and one sublime ski resort) with kick-ass massages.
I’ve always thought a massage should be a proper massage, not a “skin polish” (which is what I call it when you go to a day spa and they stroke your skin lightly for an hour) – and I trained all my staff to provide the best massages they possibly could.
A good massage is a good massage, no matter who you are… Which is why we found ourselves massaging some of the world’s biggest celebrities when they came to stay in Melbourne. This roll call includes Pearl Jam, Art Garfunkel, The Pussycat Dolls, Flo Ryda, James Earl Jones and many more. I’m always super proud when I send them one of my talented staff that I’ve trained, and even more so when those staff go on to become fantastic massage practitioners in their own right, with their own clinics and loyal clients.
But for all the bells and whistles that came with Merkas Health, I can honestly say that this Melt series is by far the most meaningful thing I’ve achieved in my career. Countless hours have been spent creating, perfecting and refining this product to give you what we have today: a unique, effective system for teaching couples how to massage that really makes a difference to relationships everywhere.
Emma Merkas, Relationships Expert
I’m Emma and I’m the lucky girl who is married to the massage guru you see to the left here. I’m also the one getting treated to all that massage in our videos – it’s a tough job, but I think I managed it pretty well.
I love to write. I’ve made it a huge part of what I do on a daily basis now, so you’ll see articles all across this website written by me. It’s my favorite way to communicate all the love and relationships knowledge I’ve accumulated in my work.
I had a national relationships column in an Australian newspaper for three years, and I’ve written articles for many glossy magazines and multi-national websites across the internet. I’m a hopeless romantic at heart and always have been, so I think it’s pretty fitting that I write mostly about relationships, love, marriage and date nights.
I used to have a full time job, but it was so long ago that I barely remember it. Lucky, as it never agreed with me anyway. We’ve learned a lot working for ourselves, and working together as a couple, and it has all come together with the recent relaunch of Melt: Massage for Couples.
We’re really proud of the product and brand we’ve created, and we’re honored that couples everywhere are using Melt to learn to massage and get closer in their own relationships. I especially love watching couples at the end of our live courses after they’ve learned to massage for two hours solid; they leave hand in hand, planting kisses on each other’s cheeks and snuggling up to one another in sheer love and gratitude… if that’s what a massage can do, give me more!
The story of how one little massage turned into a decade-long love affair
The inspiration for Melt began the day friends of mine asked me to give them a few hints for massaging their girlfriends. We were sitting around at brunch, and my mates were complaining that they always got sore hands, they didn’t know if they were doing it right, they got bored after five minutes. I showed them a thing or two. The next time I saw them, their girlfriends were raving. “Whatever you did,” they said, “you should bottle that. The massages are amazing!” My first satisfied customers.
I got to work trialling some specific massage techniques I thought would work for couples. But there was one problem. I didn’t have a girlfriend myself to try them out on. I did, however, have my eye on Emma. We were good friends and there was a lot of flirting going on, but no one had made any moves. I asked Emma over for a massage and explained to her what I was trying to achieve. It was supposed to be a little sexy, I told her, but I also promised that it would go no further than the back rub.
We sat down for that first massage using The Melt Set Up (now an important part of my teaching method) and it was amazing. There were sparks flying between us the whole time, it was undeniably hot.
We stopped after the massage, no lines had been crossed… but the sexual tension didn’t end with the massage. We couldn’t ignore it. As Emma says it, she threw herself at me later that night… and the rest is history.
For a long time after that, Melt remained our private massage routine, I decided it was better just as our secret routine, I didn’t entertain sharing it with the public. My company, Merkas Health was in rapid growth, I was super focused. My goal was to produce Melbourne best massage practitioners and I spent most of my time training staff and expanding the company.
The first versions of Melt were far too sexy and couldn’t be taught to a class. After a year of fooling around with Melt in our own relationship, treating each other to massage after massage, Emma and I discussed the idea of sharing Melt with other couples. I began stripping it back and “cleaning” the routine up. We wanted something we could teach comfortably in a group setting, and we decided that whatever happened behind closed doors was up to the couples. We’d just give them the right tools for a fantastic massage. We ran our first class with friends and family attending. This was a test to see if it was awkward or too weird to teach in a group setting. It wasn’t. We had something we could release. So we started selling our live workshops.
As the years went by, the workshops started booking out. We added more classes, teaching over 100 people in a day. I kept refining the routines and techniques based on feedback, making it better and better every time. Finding simpler solutions couples can use to make their massage more effective. The feedback we were getting from the workshops was phenomenal. It was time to give the world a chance to play with Melt, not just Australia…
In February 2014, eight years after our first workshops, we hopped onto a plane and made our way to Los Angeles to shoot our teachings onto video so we could share them with the rest of the world through online streaming technology.
The Melt videos are a combination of luck, faith and extremely hard work – we knew the techniques were good, but the whole video thing could have turned out so cheesy. It could have turned out so bad. We’ve all seen those awkward, hideous massage videos on YouTube. With all that oil and flesh, it’s so easy to get it wrong. But it turned out exactly the way we envisioned it, thanks to the amazing team of people we engaged for the shoot.
Now Melt is impacting the lives of couples from all over the world. Each month, hundreds and hundreds of couples purchase Melt to use in their own relationships. They write to us to tell us how its helped them – more intimacy, deeper connections, stronger trust… We know its a small thing but we also know its a proven thing: Massage changes couples relationships. We’re helping in one small way, as one happy customer put it, to bring a little more love to people’s lives. We couldn’t be happier or more proud.
A Scene from Melt
