Smooth brush removing geometry?

From the looks of it, the smooth tool is working like it should. The issue seems to be the size of the brush or the zoom level that you’re using the smooth tool at. If you us the smooth tool while zoomed out, it will affect a larger area to “smooth” and contract it like that. Zoom in and switch to subdivide or uniformisation to add more detail without much noticeable contraction of the mesh while smoothing.