 <p>I solved my problem by creating a compound border attribute every time I set the border color, like this:</p> <pre><code> change: function(hex) { //console.log(hex + ' - ' + opacity); var curObj = window.curObj; var inner = '#' + $(curObj).attr("id") + ' .object_inner'; $(inner).css('border-color', hex); //hack for chrome to get around htmlpurifier bug dropping border-color defined in rgb on IMG tags. var border_all = $(inner).css('border'); if (border_all == '') { //ff returns empty string so we'll have to uild our own compound object var width = $(inner).css('border-top-width'); var color = $(inner).css('border-top-color'); $(inner).css('border','solid '+width+' ' + color); } else { //but for chrome it is enough to pull the compound out, then set it hard. The browser does the work. $(inner).css('border',border_all); } } </code></pre>