diff --git a/src/highlighters.cc b/src/highlighters.cc
index 6f0c3848..c1969a94 100644
--- a/src/highlighters.cc
+++ b/src/highlighters.cc
@@ -721,7 +721,7 @@ void show_whitespaces(const Context& context, HighlightFlags flags, DisplayBuffe
                         atom_it->replace(lf.str());
                     else if (cp == 0xA0)
                         atom_it->replace(nbsp.str());
-                    atom_it->face = whitespaceface;
+                    atom_it->face = merge_faces(atom_it->face, whitespaceface);
                     break;
                 }
             }