diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index 40b4f24..2abc628 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -32,4 +32,4 @@
         "fabpot/php-cs-fixer": "1.7.*",
         "phpunit/PHPUnit": "~4.0"
     }
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}
diff --git a/src/Escaper.php b/src/Escaper.php
index b732c5e..258dbdf 100644
--- a/src/Escaper.php
+++ b/src/Escaper.php
@@ -41,13 +41,11 @@ class Escaper
 
     /**
      * Holds the value of the special flags passed as second parameter to
-     * htmlspecialchars(). We modify these for PHP 5.4 to take advantage
-     * of the new ENT_SUBSTITUTE flag for correctly dealing with invalid
-     * UTF-8 sequences.
+     * htmlspecialchars().
      *
-     * @var string
+     * @var int
      */
-    protected $htmlSpecialCharsFlags = ENT_QUOTES;
+    protected $htmlSpecialCharsFlags;
 
     /**
      * Static Matcher which escapes characters for HTML Attribute contexts
@@ -89,8 +87,7 @@ class Escaper
 
     /**
      * Constructor: Single parameter allows setting of global encoding for use by
-     * the current object. If PHP 5.4 is detected, additional ENT_SUBSTITUTE flag
-     * is set for htmlspecialchars() calls.
+     * the current object.
      *
      * @param string $encoding
      * @throws Exception\InvalidArgumentException
@@ -116,9 +113,8 @@ public function __construct($encoding = null)
             $this->encoding = $encoding;
         }
 
-        if (defined('ENT_SUBSTITUTE')) {
-            $this->htmlSpecialCharsFlags|= ENT_SUBSTITUTE;
-        }
+        // We take advantage of ENT_SUBSTITUTE flag to correctly deal with invalid UTF-8 sequences.
+        $this->htmlSpecialCharsFlags = ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE;
 
         // set matcher callbacks
         $this->htmlAttrMatcher = [$this, 'htmlAttrMatcher'];