Methods for crude tall-oil refining and fractionation involving research studies of long-chain fatty and resinic acids separation are reviewed. Although several techniques have been applied since the 1940s with industrial aims, only distillation under high vacuum is economically practicable for crude tall-oil fractionation. Techniques such as adsorption and dissociation extraction seem to be the most industrially promising for implementation in the future for the separation of long-chain fatty and resinic acids fractions with a high purity level at low cost.