The use of liquid water at elevated temperatures and pressures as an extractive solvent for separating mixtures of compounds which occur in natural oils has been studied. A southern pine tall oil and a distillate from the deodorization of soybean oil were extracted with liquid water at temperatures from298 to 312 deg C and pressures between 103 and 121 bar. Results indicate that water can be used to extract fatty and resin acids from crude tall oil to obtain a product with a high acid content that produces less pitch during disttilation. The process can also be used to extract fatty acids from vegetable oil deodorizer distillate.