From the suggestion of my previous post (here),
the message button i'm using :
Here the stars and the notification (1) both depicts a new message. So is it OK to use both of them or the either one?
PS: the message will always be (1) at a given time for now.There can't be 2 new messages.I just added the badge to make it more prominent.
Update
Basically the messages are received from a single person every time. This makes the message somewhat special (just to justify the stars).
Also, the user will only open the app to read a message which is sent by the same person every time.