Due to the demand of extending oil drain interval, to inhibit oxidation and diminish deterioration of lubricants became essential in designing the lubricant formulation. In this paper, in addition to various types of antioxidants with different chemical compositions, the oxidation mechanism of lubricant including initiation, chain propagation, chain branching and termination reactions were introduced. Furthermore, two types of antioxidant mechanism were presented involving the primary antioxidant which can scavenge free radicals and secondary antioxidant which can reduce hydroperoxides to alcohols.