Bilateral filter can be used to smooth the texture while preserving significant edges / contrast.

Below shows a live demo in ShaderToy. Press mouse for comparison.
Thanks to mrharicot’s awesome bilateral filter: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4dfGDH
With performance improvement proposed by athlete.
With gamma correction by iq: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XtsSzH


 

Skin detection forked from carlolsson’s Skin Detection https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlfSzn#