Setting AIR Application backgroundcolor strips child styles

Question

I set the following style properties to my flex/AIR application to achieve a transparent background so I could create a non-square/rectangle shape.

    
    Application 
    {
      /* make app window transparent */
      backgroundColor:""; 
      background-image:""; 
      padding: 0px;
      margin-top: 0;
      margin-right: 0;
      margin-bottom: 0;
      margin-left: 0;
    }
    
  

unfortunately, this seems to also strip some of the styles off components inside the application. How do I restore the styles? or is there a better way to achieve the same transparent background?