diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 70813aaf1..49b7a6927 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -6,6 +6,10 @@ Performance improvements:
 
 * [PERF #1381](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/pull/1381):
   Directory traversal is sped up with speculative ignore-file existence checks.
+* PERF:
+  Improve inner literal detection to cover more cases more effectively.
+  e.g., ` +Sherlock Holmes +` now has ` Sherlock Holmes ` extracted instead
+  of ` `.
 
 Feature enhancements:
 
diff --git a/grep-regex/src/literal.rs b/grep-regex/src/literal.rs
index 1563ca052..cc1e8965d 100644
--- a/grep-regex/src/literal.rs
+++ b/grep-regex/src/literal.rs
@@ -146,7 +146,6 @@ fn union_required(expr: &Hir, lits: &mut Literals) {
                 hir::RepetitionKind::ZeroOrMore => lits.cut(),
                 hir::RepetitionKind::OneOrMore => {
                     union_required(&x.hir, lits);
-                    lits.cut();
                 }
                 hir::RepetitionKind::Range(ref rng) => {
                     let (min, max) = match *rng {