diff --git a/requests/__version__.py b/requests/__version__.py
index 71b30df8..7eec1959 100644
--- a/requests/__version__.py
+++ b/requests/__version__.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-
 # .-. .-. .-. . . .-. .-. .-. .-.
 # |(  |-  |.| | | |-  `-.  |  `-.
 # ' ' `-' `-`.`-' `-' `-'  '  `-'
@@ -13,4 +11,6 @@ __author__ = 'Kenneth Reitz'
 __author_email__ = 'me@kennethreitz.org'
 __license__ = 'Apache 2.0'
 __copyright__ = 'Copyright 2017 Kenneth Reitz'
-__cake__ = u'✨ 🍰 ✨'
+__cake__ = u'\u2728 \U0001f370 \u2728'
+
+
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 6dd2cad7..dad03781 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ requires = [
 test_requirements = ['pytest>=2.8.0', 'pytest-httpbin==0.0.7', 'pytest-cov', 'pytest-mock']
 
 about = {}
-with open(os.path.join(here, 'requests', '__version__.py')) as f:
+with open(os.path.join(here, 'requests', '__version__.py'), 'r', 'utf-8') as f:
     exec(f.read(), about)
 
 with open('README.rst', 'r', 'utf-8') as f: