This review provides an overview of air-drying binders and chemical processes responsible for their solidification and hardening. It is focused not only on binders derived from plant oils but also on oriental lacquers and their synthetic congeners as their curing is also based on chemical reactions with air-oxygen. The main aim of this review is to bring a critical view on the mechanism of the autoxidation process relevant to paint technology and highlight the previous misinterpretation, remaining open questions, and gaps in the current state of knowledge. Such an objective was achieved by utilization of the latest knowledge appearing in various areas of the chemical research, e.g., organic chemistry, biochemistry, physical chemistry, computational chemistry, and inorganic chemistry. Considerable attention is also given to recent developments in the field of transition metal driers and additives including clarification the role of cobalt-based driers and an updated overview of cobalt replacement.