diff --git a/src/shared/mount-util.c b/src/shared/mount-util.c
index b43ea73b9b1..7033de68a1e 100644
--- a/src/shared/mount-util.c
+++ b/src/shared/mount-util.c
@@ -857,7 +857,7 @@ int mount_option_mangle(
                 _cleanup_free_ char *word = NULL;
                 const struct libmnt_optmap *ent;
 
-                r = extract_first_word(&p, &word, ",", EXTRACT_KEEP_QUOTE);
+                r = extract_first_word(&p, &word, ",", EXTRACT_KEEP_QUOTE | EXTRACT_RETAIN_ESCAPE);
                 if (r < 0)
                         return r;
                 if (r == 0)
diff --git a/src/test/test-mount-util.c b/src/test/test-mount-util.c
index ccaaacc812d..18ebed3e141 100644
--- a/src/test/test-mount-util.c
+++ b/src/test/test-mount-util.c
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ TEST(mount_option_mangle) {
         assert_se(f == 0);
         ASSERT_STREQ(opts, "mode=01777,size=10%,nr_inodes=400k,uid=496107520,gid=496107520,context=\"system_u:object_r:svirt_sandbox_file_t:s0:c0,c1\"");
         opts = mfree(opts);
+
+        assert_se(mount_option_mangle("lower=/path/one/with/some\\:colons:/path/two", 0, &f, &opts) == 0);
+        assert_se(f == 0);
+        ASSERT_STREQ(opts, "lower=/path/one/with/some\\:colons:/path/two");
+        opts = mfree(opts);
 }
 
 static void test_mount_flags_to_string_one(unsigned long flags, const char *expected) {