diff --git a/app/helpers/html_helper.rb b/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
index 522760d7d9..95b7e5d0db 100644
--- a/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/html_helper.rb
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 module HtmlHelper
   def strip_html(html)
-    squeeze_linebreaks substitute_entities strip_tags add_linebreaks html
+    strip_surrounding_whitespace substitute_entities strip_tags add_linebreaks html
   end
 
   def substitute_entities(html)
@@ -10,11 +10,12 @@ module HtmlHelper
   def add_linebreaks(html)
     # I know Cthulu is coming for me. Forgive me.
     # http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/2720566
-    html.andand.gsub(/<\/h[^>]>|<br[^>]*>|<\/p>|<\/div>/, "\\1\n")
+    html.
+      andand.gsub(/<\/h[^>]>|<\/p>|<\/div>/, "\\1\n\n").
+      andand.gsub(/<br[^>]*>/, "\\1\n")
   end
 
-  def squeeze_linebreaks(html)
-    html.andand.squeeze "\n"
+  def strip_surrounding_whitespace(html)
+    html.andand.strip
   end
-
 end
diff --git a/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb b/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
index 4b3118ea10..3a19ddfce0 100644
--- a/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/helpers/html_helper_spec.rb
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ require 'spec_helper'
 describe HtmlHelper do
   describe "stripping html from a string" do
     it "strips tags" do
-      helper.strip_html('<p><b>Hello</b> <em>world</em>!</p>').should == "Hello world!\n"
+      helper.strip_html('<p><b>Hello</b> <em>world</em>!</p>').should == "Hello world!"
     end
 
     it "removes nbsp and amp entities" do
@@ -15,27 +15,27 @@ describe HtmlHelper do
     end
 
     describe "line breaks" do
-      it "adds a line break after heading tags" do
-        helper.strip_html("<h1>foo</h1>").should == "foo\n";
-        helper.strip_html("<h2>foo</h2>").should == "foo\n";
+      it "adds two line breaks after heading tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("<h1>foo</h1>bar").should == "foo\n\nbar";
+        helper.strip_html("<h2>foo</h2>bar").should == "foo\n\nbar";
+      end
+
+      it "adds two line breaks after p tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("<p>foo</p>bar").should == "foo\n\nbar";
+      end
+
+      it "adds two line breaks after div tags" do
+        helper.strip_html("<div>foo</div>bar").should == "foo\n\nbar";
       end
 
       it "adds a line break after br tags" do
-        helper.strip_html("foo<br>").should == "foo\n";
-        helper.strip_html("foo<br/>").should == "foo\n";
-        helper.strip_html("foo<br />").should == "foo\n";
+        helper.strip_html("foo<br>bar").should == "foo\nbar";
+        helper.strip_html("foo<br/>bar").should == "foo\nbar";
+        helper.strip_html("foo<br />bar").should == "foo\nbar";
       end
 
-      it "adds a line break after p tags" do
-        helper.strip_html("<p>foo</p>").should == "foo\n";
-      end
-
-      it "adds a line break after div tags" do
-        helper.strip_html("<div>foo</div>").should == "foo\n";
-      end
-
-      it "squeezes multiple line breaks" do
-        helper.strip_html("<p>foo</p><br /><br>bar").should == "foo\nbar";
+      it "strips line breaks at the end of the string" do
+        helper.strip_html("<div>foo</div><br />").should == "foo";
       end
     end
   end