INCI, and reading a label
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INCI is the shared vocabulary of this industry. Learning to read it properly is the cheapest competitive advantage available to a small brand, because most of your competitors cannot.
What INCI is
A standardized naming system so that the same ingredient carries the same name on every label in every market. It is why water is Aqua, why vitamin E is Tocopherol, and why an ingredient list looks intimidating for reasons that have nothing to do with the formula.
It is required for ingredient declaration under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, in descending order of predominance.
How to read the order
Descending by weight, until you reach the one percent threshold, after which ingredients may be listed in any order.
That threshold is where most of the useful reading happens. Preservatives, actives at low levels, fragrance and chelators typically sit there, so their position tells you little. What the top of the list tells you is what the product mostly is: water, then the oils, then the emulsifier and thickener.
A product whose marketed hero ingredient sits below the preservative is a product where that ingredient is present at a fraction of a percent, and the list says so to anyone who can read it.
What a supplier spec has to give you
The INCI name, which goes on your label. The grade and purity. The recommended usage range and the pH range it is stable and effective in. Solubility, so you know which phase it belongs in. Its heat sensitivity, so you know when to add it. And a certificate of analysis for the lot.
A supplier who can provide all of that is a different proposition from one selling by marketing name.
Using it as a buyer
Read competitors' lists. It tells you their preservative system, roughly where their actives sit, whether the interesting ingredient is at a functional level, and what their price is actually buying.
And write your own honestly. A brand confident enough to publish its full list, with the actives at levels that survive scrutiny, is making a claim that its competitors mostly cannot match.