A customer wrote to me recently about using Brasso or other brands of brass cleaner to clean the snake chain we use on many of our necklaces. She sounded like the DIY type so I told her that I thought that it would take off the lacquer (we use a lacquer on our jewelry to keep it cleaner longer) but that it would work to brighten up the brass and remove any tarnish. It really does work. We've tested it here in the factory. How often you have to clean with the Brasso or other product just depends on how often you wear the jewelry and under what conditions.
When in doubt, you can always send your jewelry to us and we'll clean it for you. You can find details about that here.