Although not recommanded, you could also use the Browser object ExecJS expression, but I guess it's okay for test games !
Set color to Browser.ExecJS("parseInt('" & someHexValue & "', 16);")
You can also wrap this in a function, like aruche did with his method.
Anyhow, it seems that an official way of parsing hex values is lacking, and could be suggestion for a future feature ! <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />