Change text selection highlight with JS

For standard browsers you can use something like this to change the coloring of selected text:

div.txtArea::selection {
 background: transparent;
}

div.txtArea::-moz-selection {
 background: transparent;
}

div.txtArea::-webkit-selection {
 background: transparent;
}

But I need to do this with JavaScript instead.

My users can select text and then change the color. While they are selecting another color it updates the color constantly. Since the text is selected they can't see what the color looks like. I need to change the selection style of my targeted element to be transparent only during mouseover of the color changer.

I have tried a few things including:

$('div.txtArea').css({
    'selection': 'transparent',
    '-moz-selection': 'transparent',
    '-webkit-selection': 'transparent'
});

Is there a way to do this with javascript?