title: UTF8 character encoding using node Request module
body: <p>I have a simple app that uses a jquery ajax request to send form data to a node server, which in turn submits to a third party api using the Request module for node js.</p>
  
  <p>The issue I'm having is that accented (and other similar) characters are not encoded correctly when they reach the third party server. For example  <em>é</em> is recorded as <em>Ã©</em></p>
  
  <p>I am fairly sure this is to do with the settings for Request as I get the same results when I bypass the ajax call.</p>
  
  <p>Here are the settings I am using:</p>
  
  <p>html:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>jquery ajax settings:</p>
  
  <pre><code>type        : 'POST',
  url         : '/api',
  data        : formData, // A json object
  dataType    : 'json',
  ContentType : 'text/html; charset=utf-8'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Request module settings in node (there is nothing happening to the form data between ajax post and being sent by request):</p>
  
  <pre><code>request.post({
      url: "https://testurl.com/api/",
      form: formData,
      headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8'}
  } ...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have read various SO solutions but had no success, so any suggestions greatly appreciated.</p>