diff --git a/requests_html.py b/requests_html.py
index ea8f3bd..0c3a989 100644
--- a/requests_html.py
+++ b/requests_html.py
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ class BaseParser:
             try:
                 self._lxml = soup_parse(self.html, features='html.parser')
             except ValueError:
-                self._lxml = lxml.html.fromstring(self.html)
+                self._lxml = lxml.html.fromstring(self.raw_html)
 
         return self._lxml