As beauty goes, Ellen DeGeneres is not cut from the same cloth as her bride, Portia de Rossi, or an actress like Gwyneth Paltrow. With her sharpish features and flair for courting controversy, DeGeneres, 50, would seem an unlikely candidate to represent a major cosmetics brand.

But her attributes -- even the negative ones -- are among the reasons that CoverGirl, the beauty industry giant, has hired her to be the face of its next advertising campaign.

"Ellen is an authentic beauty," said Esi Eggleston Bracey, a vice- president of Procter and Gamble, the parent company of CoverGirl. DeGeneres appeals to consumers who are "looking not so much for a role model as a woman they can relate to both physically and emotionally," Eggleston Bracey said. "In Ellen, she sees a slightly better version of herself, someone appealing from the inside out."

DeGeneres, who will start to appear in the company's ads in January, is not the first unconventional model for CoverGirl, which veered away from its longtime mascot, Christie Brinkley, more than a decade ago.

But she does represent the type of celebrity whom cosmetics companies are approaching as they widen their talent pool, seeking out endorsers whose chief drawing card is a knack for charming Everywoman. The selection of DeGeneres is simply the industry's latest bid to reach out to women who consider themselves disenfranchised because they do not look like Kate Moss.

"We don't need to see another ingenue rocking to the top -- we've had a few," said Lesley Jane Seymour, the editor in chief of More, a magazine for women over 40. "We're getting worn out by the Lindsays and the Britneys, and I think we need a break."

Industry figures seem to bear out that assertion. Sales of mass market cosmetics plunged 6 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 compared with the same quarter in 2007, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm.

In such a climate, major brands find themselves retooling their ads to reach shoppers who would prefer to see a glamorously packaged version of themselves.

"Women don't necessarily want to look slimmer, younger or more stylishly turned out," Seymour said. "They just want to be the best that they can be for the stage of life that they are in."

They are less likely to identify with Lindsay Lohan than, perhaps, with Andie MacDowell, 50, whose crows' feet are discernible in a L'Oreal print campaign for RevitaLift Anti-Wrinkle Concentrate.

Is the choice of DeGeneres risky? Not so much. Her sexual orientation notwithstanding, she is unlikely to alienate CoverGirl's demographic of 17- to 70-year-olds. More than a decade ago DeGeneres made history -- and fell from grace -- when she came out as gay in an episode of Ellen, her television sitcom.

But her rocky career and comeback may be especially fascinating to women in midlife who have experienced a few bumps of their own. Today DeGeneres is one of the most popular celebrities in America, an endearingly familiar presence on her daily television talk show and in American Express commercials.

"The idea of reinventing yourself is huge" to middle-aged women, Seymour said. "Second-act stories give them inspiration and strength."

Not everyone views her as an obvious CoverGirl choice. "What does she bring to the party?" said Allan Mottus, a beauty industry analyst. "Sure, people are looking for women they can identify with, but Ellen DeGeneres has a talk show; she married a beautiful woman. Is that something most people can relate to?"