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Let's face it: Most popular culture, except for the occasional "seasons of a woman's life" hospital commercial, still does not allow many fresh wrinkles.

Wrinkles are things to be creamed or otherwise erased or avoided in the first place, especially if you're trying to sell the ideals of Youth and Beauty and wash-and-wear pants.

Yet increasingly, the face of pop culture is developing more, well, texture, as marketers scramble after the burgeoning demographic of those 50-plus.

AARP The Magazine -- the bi-monthly of the 35-million-plus-member group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons -- is heading out on a summerlong "road show," during which it's inviting you beautiful seasoned folks to enter its "Faces of 50+ Real People Model Search."

Guess where the first stop is?

That's right, Pittsburgh, legendary for being, if not the prettiest, certainly one of the oldest and realest areas in the nation. This weekend, we can put our best furrowed faces forward.

Friday through Sunday, the "Road Show" will be at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, Downtown.

Interested visitors can have their faces photographed and entered in the search, which will be judged by editor Steve Slon and beauty editor Gabrielle Redford. Winners in three age groups -- 50-59, 60-69, and 70+ -- will be featured in fashion and beauty articles in 2007. No hurry.

Ms. Redford says the face they want "is healthy, looks healthy. We are not looking for someone who's had a lot of plastic surgery. We're looking for natural beauties."

She says, "There are an awful lot of people out there who look terrific." Last year's model search resulted in some 3,000 entries, and she found it difficult to pick winners. One was just this month flown to New York with five other real recruits for a two-day photo shoot of travel clothing that is to run in the coming September-October issue, and other road show contestants could still be used as models.

Ms. Redford is delighted because, "They look like real people. And that actually is appealing to our readers as well."

Interestingly, the magazine actually is published in three editions in which some stories and ads are customized to each of those demographic groups (Key: Look for the letter after the volume and number on the table of contents page: A is 50-59, B is 60-69 and C is 70+).

Formed in 2003 by combining Modern Maturity and My Generation magazines, it's sent to 22 million households, making it claim to be the "world's largest circulation magazine."

Like any magazine, this one gives readers what they want, and so its covers feature lots of celebrities, including, in the November-December issue, Katie Couric, who, some pointed out, was only 48 at the time. But AARP doesn't have any rule about how old or not its cover subjects can be. That lots of readers are interested in the TV star is enough.

There's no rule for the ages of models used inside the magazine, either, but Ms. Redford says, "We always try to make sure that the models look like our readers. Otherwise our readers just don't identify with them."

Many will write to say so.

She says it's still difficult to find older fashion models, but she, too, is noticing more gray- -- er, silver- -- haired ones, or at least 40-something ones, showing up in places such as Nordstrom catalogs.

"As Boomers age they want to see people like themselves modeling clothes and other products."

Could yours be a late-blooming fashionable face? This AARP road show could be your ticket.

Be warned, however: If you visit the booths, you will be faced with the marketing efforts of a host of companies that don't care what color your hair is as long as your money is green.

Advertisers from Aveeno to Vital Radiance are part of this rolling "platform," which, according to the press release, offers them "an integrated marketing program that delivers fun, interactive events including sweepstakes, exhibits, prize giveaways, free health screenings, free massages, product sampling, cooking demos, games and more."

Guess those with crow's feet should be flattered to be part of the fold.