diff --git a/R/lzstringr-package.R b/R/lzstringr-package.R
index 9dd4d8e..63d9415 100644
--- a/R/lzstringr-package.R
+++ b/R/lzstringr-package.R
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ safe_compress <- function(string, f) {
   string <- iconv(string, from="UTF-8", to="UTF-16", toRaw=TRUE)[[1]]
   result <- f(string)
   chr_result <- rawToChar(as.raw(result))
+  Encoding(chr_result) <- "UTF-8"
   chr_result
 }